


Take a Gamble on Murder

by armchairaloof



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka is JB Fletcher, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Rex is the town sheriff, depictions of crime but only to the level of a campy tv show from the 90s, the murder she wrote au no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25662847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armchairaloof/pseuds/armchairaloof
Summary: Famous mystery novelist A.B. Tano returns to her quiet hometown on the coast of Maine, only to find that just because she left the big city, it doesn’t mean she left the crime solving behind too.Or, a Murder She Wrote AU with a side of ‘city girl returns to her small hometown and sees her ex-boyfriend again.’
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 91
Kudos: 236





	1. Chapter 1

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Her ladder barely reached the lowest branch of the tree in her side yard. Ahsoka sighed, then propped it against the bark and dug it into the soft ground a bit to stabilize it and started to climb up. Just as she reached the top rung, she heard a pitiful meow from somewhere high up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” she mumbled. She didn’t even have a cat. But she’d heard the beast yowling woefully into the night from her open bedroom window, so here she was. It’s not like she was sleeping anyway. There was a blank document on her computer screen mocking her whenever she opened it, keeping sleep away.

Another sad meow, straight above her now.

“Well, you’re the dumbass who got us into this mess,” she told it.

“Insulting defenseless animals now?”

Ahsoka had been just about to climb up onto the branch when the unnervingly familiar voice called out. She jerked and almost fell from the ladder, letting out a stream of muttered curses as she managed to steady herself by scrabbling at the tree bark.

“Still got the mouth of a sailor I see.”

She carefully turned her head to peer down at her accoster and almost fell off the ladder again.

“Officer Rex Fett, how nice to see you,” she gritted out, making it clear by tone alone that she deemed the surprise the opposite of nice.

“Actually, it’s Sheriff now.” He tapped a shiny star on his chest and Ahsoka rolled her eyes. It figures that this backstabbing town would elect him sheriff. They’d definitely taken his side in the breakup.

She returned her focus to the task at hand, getting a better footing on the rung and reaching one hand up towards the thick branch. Rex apparently wasn’t done talking.

“Funny thing,” he continued as if she’d asked. “Got a call there was a half-clothed woman trying to break into a house with a ladder.”

Ahsoka looked down at her thin cotton tank top and running shorts. She was probably giving him quite a view from down below. Not like he hadn’t seen it before though.

It was probably the nosy old woman who lived on the corner who’d called the cops on her. She walked around all day with binoculars around her neck and a shrewd, judgy look in her eyes.

Swinging a leg up, she levered herself onto the branch and off the ladder, then carefully shimmied forward so that she was straddling it.

“Well if I see anyone who fits that description, I’ll be sure to give you guys a call!” Ahsoka said cheerily, grinding her teeth. She didn’t have any real hope that that would get him to leave, but a girl could try.

She heard the familiar sound of Rex’s chuckle and felt her chest tighten.

“What are you doing up there, anyway?” he asked.

Ahsoka didn’t answer, just climbed to the next tree limb. The meow that followed was clearer, and she swiveled towards the sound. There on a branch some five feet away was a gray mass of fur lounging on the bark.

“Gotcha,” she said to it, and stepped onto a closer branch. The cat finally seemed to realize her intentions when she reached out to scoop it up in one arm, but it was too late for it to escape. It did claw at her though, drawing blood on her forearm as several sharp talon-like appendages connected with skin. Ahsoka hissed in pain and grumbled, “I’m trying to help you, you little bastard.”

“You all right, Ahsoka?” His voice was muffled by leaves now, but she could’ve sworn she heard a note of worry.

“Fine, fine,” she said a little louder for his benefit. She got a hold of the cat and tucked it into her side, holding onto as many paws as she could reach, and turned back to go down. It was a little trickier with a squirming furball in her arms, but eventually she made it back to the lowest branch. Ahsoka grabbed onto it with one hand and swung herself down to the ladder, backing down the steps until she was a couple feet off the ground and then jumping lightly to her feet.

“Whoa there,” Rex—Sheriff Fett, she mentally corrected herself—said in surprise as she landed in front of him.

The years since she’d seen him last had been good to him. He seemed taller, broader than he had been before, but handsome as ever. There were new lines around his mouth and eyes that made her wonder whom he was sharing his laughter with these days, then she shut down that line of thinking before it could continue any farther.

He was eyeing her thoughtfully as well. “Lose your cat?”

Ahsoka looked down at the cat cradled in her arms. Plump and long haired, it looked back at her curiously. It seemed to be resigned to its fate now, not trying to jump away, and she felt the barest hints of a purr beginning. A leather collar hung around its neck and she fingered the simple metal tag looped around it. One word: _Gamble_. Presumably the cat’s name, but no contact information for an owner. Great.

“Not my cat,” she said to him. “In fact, shouldn’t this be your job? Rescuing cats from trees?”

He flashed her a lopsided smile. “Well, who am I to stop a pretty lady from doing my job for me?”

“Ugh.” She did not have the patience for this. Ahsoka held out the cat to him. “Here, take it. It’s really not mine.”

He backed away with his hands up, eyes wide. “Whoa, whoa, I’m the Sheriff, not Animal Control.”

“You just said this was your job.”

“Well, I don’t deal with the animals after we’ve caught them, that’s Kit’s job.”

Ahsoka groaned. “And who is Kit?”

“Kit’s the vet in town.”

“Well, bring it to Kit then.” She tried to give him the cat again, but he sidestepped her.

“His office doesn’t open till morning.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Getting real tired of this, Sheriff.”

He grinned briefly at her, then said almost apologetically, “I can take you there first thing tomorrow. You still don’t drive, right?”

Ahsoka looked at him oddly. She’d sold her car and swore off driving years ago, but it was after they’d broken up. In the city it wasn’t such a big deal; having a car in New York was more of a hinderance than a help in the first place. But in coastal Maine, driving was just how you got around. She’d already been feeling the effects of that decision quite a bit more out here.

She decided not to ask how he knew. People talked around here. He’d obviously already been told she’d moved back. “Right. But I don’t need a ride, thanks.”

He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s at least two miles to his office downtown, you can’t carry a cat that far.”

Ahsoka shrugged, wanting this conversation to be over. It had to be past midnight at this point, her arms were getting tired holding this cat, and she wanted to go back to not knowing what Present Day Rex looked and sounded like.

“I’ll get someone to take me then.” The _someone other than_ _you_ was left unsaid.

He seemed to get her meaning anyway and gave her a tight smile. “Ah, of course. Well, I guess I’ll be going then.” Rex walked backwards to a Coruscant Cove Sheriff’s Department SUV that was parked in front of her house, but a thought seemed to strike him and he paused in his retreat. “Be careful out here at night, been some bad sorts around lately,” he called back to her.

Ahsoka scowled in confusion. This was a tiny town in Maine with hardly any crime. Hell, that was one of the main reasons she moved back here.

A mystery writer who was afraid of a gunshot in the night. Yeah, she knew it was ridiculous. But here she was.

Rex smiled at her again, a little sadder now, and she wondered if the new lines around his mouth were really from laughing. “Have a nice night, Ahsoka.”

She was too startled to think of a response and he didn’t seem to be waiting for one anyway. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. Ahsoka watched as he drove away, then looked down at the cat in her arms.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with you now?”

The cat blinked and meowed inquiringly at her.

“Yeah, maybe stop talking to cats, for starters.”

* * *

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that Rex is the sheriff now?”

“Auntie Soka said a bad word.” Luke pointed at her from his spot at the dining table.

Obi-Wan ruffled the boy’s hair as he passed behind him. “Yes, she did.”

“Sorry, Luke,” Ahsoka said quickly to her nephew. He accepted the apology with a solemn nod then went back to his cereal. “But really, you guys couldn’t have given me a heads up?”

“Look, we didn’t know how to tell you he was back in town.” At her murderous look, Anakin rushed to continue, “You were so excited about the house and moving back!”

Ahsoka crossed her arms petulantly. “I wouldn’t have been if I knew that _he_ was here too.”

“See! Right there, that’s why we didn’t tell you.”

Both of her brothers avoided direct eye contact and she followed as they retreated into the kitchen.

She’d ambushed them at Obi-Wan’s house this morning with the intent to berate them for not telling her this key detail. Last night had been guys’ night, a biweekly tradition among the men of the family to eat junk food, drink beer, and watch action movies at Obi-Wan’s house, then have a sleepover. Cute.

Well, Luke still preferred a juice box over a lager, but he’d get there when he was old enough.

The sound of her phone ringing cut off any further conversation. She fished it out of her pocket and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ms. Tano? This is Sheryl, from Dr. Fisto's office? We met this morning when you dropped off your cat?”

 _Not my cat_ , Ahsoka mentally countered the saccharine voice on the other end of the line.

“Uh, yes, hi.”

“Hi, dear. Just wanted to give you a quick update. Gamble’s doing just fine, so his jaunt up that tree didn’t have any ill effects.”

“Oh. Good, yeah.” The cat being hurt or sick hadn’t even crossed Ahsoka’s mind when she took it to the vet this morning. She felt like a terrible person now.

“The doctor noted that he’s not chipped, would you like to have that done?” Sheryl asked kindly, if not a bit patronizingly. “Might give you some peace of mind if he ever runs out the door again.”

“Well, I don’t—"

“Oh, you’re so right, dear,” Sheryl said, seeming flustered at herself. “We don’t want to overwhelm him by doing that now, we can just do it at his next checkup. So you can come get him whenever you’d like, though we would suggest maybe coming by car and with a carrier this time.”

Ahsoka had put the cat in the front basket of her bicycle and biked the distance to the vet’s office this morning. After some initial apprehension, the cat seemed to like it actually. He’d popped his head out of the basket and watched all the houses and trees go by as they coasted along the streets.

“Actually, it’s not—”

“Our office is open till six today, dear. So you come by whenever and we’ll have your fella ready for you.”

Sheryl hung up abruptly and Ahsoka pulled the phone away from her ear to stare at it.

“What was that about?” Obi-Wan asked, no doubt seeing her bemused expression.

“I guess I need to go back to the vet’s office.”

Obi-Wan nodded sagely. “Ah, Sheryl. Yes, she has that effect on people, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not even my cat!”

“Yes, I’ve been thinking about that…” Ahsoka whirled to face him, hope written clearly on her face. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, but I don’t know of anyone who’s lost a cat lately.”

“And Padme has put out some feelers but hasn’t had any positive responses either,” Anakin added.

“Doesn’t this town have an animal shelter?” she asked desperately.

Anakin and Obi-Wan exchanged glum looks, and she deflated again.

“Just my luck.”

Anakin patted her on the back. “Come on, let’s put your bike in my trunk. I’ll drop you off at the vet on our way home.”

“Can you drive me home too? I'm pretty sure I'll have another passenger,” she said resignedly.

He chuckled and grabbed his car keys. “Might as well stop by the grocery store too, get you some cat food.”

* * *

Across town, a mistake was being discovered.

“What the hell do you mean, _you don’t have it_?”

The man in front of him winced, but forced his shoulders to lower to a more relaxed posture. “It wasn’t in the truck and it wasn’t on his person.”

“Well then where is it?” his boss spat.

A cold fury traveled down Mal’s spine. He’d killed men for less. He shouldn’t have to take orders from some power-hungry bigshot who spoke to him like he was a child.

“How should I know! He said it was safe, maybe he hid it somewhere other than his rig,” Mal growled. He’d torn that truck apart looking for the _insurance_ that rat had supposedly collected on the operation. Who knows, maybe the asshole was lying about it even existing.

The boss leaned forward in his creaking desk chair, his face finally coming out of the perpetual shadow of this godforsaken room.

“Find it,” he sneered. “Or it’ll be more than your job on the line.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rex switched off the headlights on his cruiser a block away from the docks, pulling up to a curb that had a decent line of sight to the entrance. He had a few spots he’d been rotating through, never going to the same one two nights in a row and keeping the times random.

He pulled out a pair of binoculars from his glove compartment and held them up to his eyes. No guard at the chain link gate to the shipping company’s property. That was unusual. Rex had been doing periodic stakeouts for the last few weeks and there’d always been one ugly security guard or another sitting in the ramshackle guardhouse next to the gate. A few times it was the boss’s righthand man himself. Mal was a burly son of a bitch and not hard to pick out, even from a few dozen yards away.

But tonight it was empty.

Of fucking course it would be this night that they choose to mix things up. First he sees Ahsoka for the first time in twelve years and now something was happening on his pet project. He briefly considers getting a closer look but nixes the idea. Rex suspected they knew he was watching them, but all the same he’d prefer to not get caught because of a dumb mistake. For all he knew this was a trick to lure him inside without a warrant.

Or it was all in his head like the Mayor thought. Padme had been nicer saying it, but he could read through the lines. For weeks now companies that did business with Coruscant Shipping had been reporting that some of their goods were going missing during transport, which wouldn’t be cause for alarm on its own. Except right after they’d make noise, they’d suddenly change their tune and say they were mistaken, that nothing was missing.

The third time he’d had to throw away a theft report right after typing it up, Rex began his nighttime visits to the docks. And he was still plenty suspicious.

So Rex settled in for another lonely stakeout and let his thoughts drift. The encounter with Ahsoka had left him a bit shaken. He’d expected to see her again, of course. They lived in a town the size of a postage stamp and he was friendly with her family. What he hadn’t expected was to feel like no time had passed between them. He bickered with her like they were still in high school arguing over what movie to watch that night.

But time had passed, and they were different people now. There was a hardness to Ahsoka’s eyes that never used to be there when she looked at him, and Rex couldn’t help but wonder how much of the blame for putting it there was his.

His attention was wrenched back to the job as the still unguarded gate creaked open on wired hinges, allowing a semi-truck to exit. Nothing too out of the ordinary about that. Rex focused his binoculars on the cab of the truck and frowned. Except that Mal was driving the truck.

He sighed. After waiting for the truck to exit and rumble down the street in the opposite direction a little ways, Rex started his car and pulled out of his parking spot, lights still off.

Looks like his stakeout just became a tail.

* * *

“Wrench. Five eighths, please.”

Ahsoka wiggled her outstretched fingers and after a moment felt the requested tool dropped into it. She only had two wrenches in the first place, so she figured it wouldn’t be hard to locate the only other one in the toolbox.

“I still don’t see why you can’t fix the toilet yourself.” She imagined the adorable frown most likely marring her plumbing partner’s face right now. “You’re so good at fixing everything.”

Ahsoka sighed. They’d had this conversation twice now, but her six-year-old niece still thought she hung the moon. And was a master plumber, apparently.

Ahsoka was currently wedged uncomfortably inside her bathroom vanity, head resting on a stack of lumpy hand soap bars that were probably leaving soapy residue in her hair, trying desperately to remember why she was here in the first place.

“What’s the rule?” she asked patiently, still fruitlessly trying to turn a rusted gasket.

Leia huffed, then dutifully recited, “If we have to google more than three things then we call in the expert.”

“Exactly. And how many times did I have to google something?”

A pause, and Ahsoka would bet a can of the fancy two-in-one paint and primer that she’d used on the living room walls last week that Leia was counting off on her chubby little kid fingers.

“I lost count at ten.”

Makes sense, ten fingers after all.

“Yup, and last I checked ten is way more than three.” She gave it one final shove then felt the gasket give. “Aha!” she cried triumphantly. She carefully turned the newly reconnected valve and heard the sweet, sweet sound of water running through the pipe to the faucet above.

Ahsoka may be down to one working toilet in the house, but now she was back up to three sinks. She could wash her hands in so many different places. Living the dream.

She slid out of the cabinet and stood up, patting Leia on the head. “Nice job, my diminutive apprentice.”

“Your dim what now?”

“Never mind.” Ahsoka shook her head with a laugh. She started packing away her tools back into the toolbox at their feet when they heard the front door open on the floor below them.

“Daughter of mine? You here?” a voice called up the stairwell.

“Daddy!” Leia scrambled out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Ahsoka heard a male _oof_ as Leia likely threw herself at him, then slower, heavier treads upstairs.

She finished placing the wrenches in their slots in the toolbox and looked up to see Anakin leaning against the door jam with Leia in his arms.

He let out a low whistle as he surveyed the scene.

“It looks worse than it is,” she said preemptively.

Anakin raised his eyebrows. “If you say so, Snips. You gonna call Ollie?”

“Already did. According to his voicemail, he’s on a weeklong cruise in the Bahamas.”

“Good for him,” Anakin said with feeling.

“No, not _good for him_!” Ahsoka cried, feeling slighted. “He’s the only plumber in town!”

“What’s the big deal, you’ve still got one good toilet, right?” Then he said the cursed words, the words that no DIY home renovator should ever hear uttered within their—peeling, admittedly sagging in some places—walls: “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Ahsoka gasped. “You did not just jinx me! You’ll pay for that, Skyguy.”

“What’s jinx mean, Daddy?”

Anakin patted his daughter’s head and set her down on the tile floor. “Auntie Soka’s just being silly, sweetheart.”

Ahsoka scoffed. “You tell that to this hundred-and-forty-year-old house, buddy.”

“Sure, Snips,” he told her dismissively. He just didn’t understand her house. “Come on, we’re gonna be late for dinner at Obi-Wan’s.”

Ahsoka frowned and looked down at her wrist, only then realizing she wasn’t wearing a watch. She’d already learned the hard way that plumbing and jewelry did not mix.

“Is it dinnertime already?” she asked. “Could’ve sworn it was earlier. Huh.”

Anakin shot her a look that clearly said she needed to get a life. One with more adherence to things like _time_. Like he was one to talk. “It’s almost six o’clock. And if we don’t get a move on, Obi-Wan’s gonna have a conniption.”

Leia looked up at her father with a wrinkle between her brows. “What’s a con— constipation, Daddy?”

Ahsoka snorted as Anakin explained patiently, “Conniption, sweetie. It means he won’t like it if we’re late and then he might give Luke all our dessert.”

The little girl gasped dramatically and then ran over to Ahsoka to tug at her shirt sleeve. “Soka, get a move on!”

“I’m moving, kid! I’m moving.”

Anakin grinned triumphantly and reached down to pull Ahsoka up by the hand. Leia ran around them and hurried down the stairs to the front door, likely to throw her belongings haphazardly into her backpack and then tap the toe of her shoe as she waited for them to descend.

He winked at Ahsoka, then, “First lesson of parenting, nothing lights a fire under a kid more than the threat of dessert being taken away.”

“If I ever procreate, remind me to never listen to any of your parenting advice.”

He scoffed and pushed her out of the bathroom, leaving the toolbox on the floor. Whatever, she’d probably be back in here after dinner anyway making sure the seals on the pipe sections she’d just replaced were holding.

Anakin paused in the hallway and looked her over appraisingly. “You should change.”

“What? It’s just Obi-Wan’s house.” Sure, her hair probably had soap globs in it from that stack of bars that had been her headrest under there, but soap was clean at least. And she was almost positive this was only the second day in a row she’d worn these overalls. “Oh but now that you mention it, I should bring some laundry to do at his house. My machine’s been on the fritz lately.”

“Yeah, and what isn’t in this house?”

“Hey! There are plenty of things that work.” Ahsoka wracked her brain for an example. The roof? No, there was a corner in the sunroom that had leaked after last week’s storm. She hadn’t had a chance to go up and look for herself, but a new roof or at least some patches were probably in her future. That same storm had knocked her power out for over an hour before she got the finnicky fuses back working, too. She finally told him haughtily, “And I don’t have to list them all to the likes of you to prove any point."

“Fine. Your house is great, practically new construction,” he appeased with a roll of his eyes. “But seriously, at least put on a clean shirt and maybe run a brush through your hair.”

Ahsoka studied him suspiciously. “I know for a fact there were multiple times in college where you went a full week without showering, so what’s with your sudden interest in hygiene?”

“Just—" He sighed heavily and threw his hands in the air. “Trust me on this, Snips. Okay?”

She groaned in disgust but went to her bedroom to dig through a pile of clean clothes on her bed for another shirt. “Ugh, fine. I’ll get all gussied up for this intimate _family_ dinner.”

A terrible thought crossed her mind and she paused with the shirt halfway over her head. No, they wouldn’t dare try to set her up, blind date style, at a family dinner. Right? Padme had been not-so-subtly reminding her that it’d been… a while since her last relationship. If you could call two dates a relationship. But they’d all been hinting that she should start reconnecting with the locals and getting back out there. Ahsoka quickly finished changing and then went back out to the hallway.

“Speaking of, who’s all coming to this _family_ dinner?” she asked her brother, watching for his reaction closely.

Anakin jumped guiltily and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Um you know, the family…”

“Mhmm... And?”

“And uh, Obi-Wan’s boarder. You met her, right? Satine?”

Of course she knew Satine, she’d been at every Sunday dinner since Ahsoka got back to town, which Anakin well knew. He was stalling, but two could play at this game. She crossed her arms and waited him out.

He reluctantly said, “And a friend. But you already know him, so it’s fine.”

She had a suspicion about who his _friend_ was, and the thought sent a slice of anxiety through her.

“Anakin, please tell me it’s not who I think it is.”

He flinched and looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry?” Gamble trotted out of one of the bedrooms and snaked through Anakin’s legs, purring affectionately. That cat was a people pleaser.

“Anakin! Why?” she screeched, stalking past him to the bathroom and rummaged through a cardboard box labeled _Bathroom Crap_ until she found her hairbrush. A bird’s nest would have looked more orderly on top of her head than the pile of knotted hair she currently sported.

“He’s our friend!”

“ _Our_ friend?! You mean everyone else is in on this too?”

That settled it. Her whole family were traitors. The cat too.

“Yes!” he answered exasperatedly. “Look, Rex has been back for a few years already and we were friends in high school so we just kinda picked back up where we left off. And he works with Padme and Obi-Wan so much that it just seemed natural to have him at Sunday dinners too.”

“And what, you’ve been telling him to keep away for the past couple weeks that I’ve been home until you could spring it on me?”

“It’s not like that, Ahsoka!” he groaned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “He’s been busy with those thefts down at the shipping yard, and you were still settling in, so we figured we’d let things happen at their own pace. But then you said you’d already seen him and the town was still standing—" She grimaced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as she wet down parts of her hair to try to ease the brush through the tangles. “—So we thought this was as good a chance as any.”

Ahsoka got most of the soap chunks out, ripping a few knots of hair out along the way, and hastily redid her ponytail.

“This conversation isn’t over,” she told him with a finger jabbed to his chest. She brushed past him and clomped angrily down the stairs, then heard him follow at a slower pace.

“Finally!” Leia said, already waiting by the open front door with her pink princess backpack on. “Luke’s probably eaten everything by now!”

“I’m sure your mom wouldn’t let him do that, kiddo,” Ahsoka told her, siphoning the irritation out of her voice. She’d save that for her brothers.

Leia considered that. “You’re probably right. And anyway, Uncle Obi always makes a ton of vegetables and Luke _hates_ vegetables.”

“Good point, Leia,” Anakin said as he reached the front entryway.

Ahsoka sighed and ushered them all out, locking the door behind her and testing it to make sure.

City habits die hard.

* * *

The second she walked in the door she knew there was funny business afoot. The smells coming from the kitchen hit her immediately and her mouth watered in response. Ahsoka quickly dumped her laundry bag in the washing machine off to the side of the back door, poured some of Obi-Wan’s bougie detergent on top and started it, then cautiously entered the kitchen.

Evidence: Obi-Wan was making tacos.

Obi-Wan _hated_ tacos.

But they were _her_ favorite food, bar none.

“But it’s so messy!” he’d complained at her last birthday dinner, a shred of lettuce dangling from his beard. “Can’t I just use a fork?”

She’d properly shamed him for the suggestion at the time, but the facts remained. Add in a couple of enthusiastic twin six-year-olds, and his dining room and everyone in it would be a ground beef covered mess by the end of a taco night in this house.

Conclusion?

This was an appeasement. A pre-apology for inviting her ex-boyfriend to Sunday family dinner without so much as a warning. And for the whole family befriending said ex-boyfriend for several years behind her back.

It was a good move on his part. Tacos went a long way in her book after all.

Leia shot past her as a blur of pinks and pigtails and Ahsoka was brought out of her spiraling thoughts.

“Whoa, kid! Slow down a bit.”

The girl paused long enough to shed her backpack on the hook by the backdoor specially installed for just that purpose, then barreled into the kitchen.

A flash of lightning lit the world outside the house’s windows, followed closely by a boom in the distance. The twins shrieked and Ahsoka heard Padme comfort them in a soft voice.

“It’s just a storm, it’s okay,” Padme said to them.

Crap, the southeast corner of the sunroom. She should really have someone look at her roof. Ahsoka sighed as she added that to her ever growing list of things to do. Hopefully the cat didn’t mind thunder.

“Ahsoka! Glad you could make it.” Obi-Wan called to her cheerily, briefly turning from where he was manning the stove. He was wearing the ridiculous apron that Anakin had given him years ago with the exaggerated cartoon body of a bikini clad woman on it. Anakin still sometimes doubled over in laughter when he saw him wearing it. “Satine, could you take over for a second?”

He passed a spatula to Satine after she’d put down the book she’d been reading at the breakfast nook and joined him at the stove.

“Ahsoka, can I speak to you for a moment?” Obi-Wan gestured to the dining room and she followed.

“If you’re trying to tell me you invited Rex, Anakin already beat you to it.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened. “Oh, well, yes…”

“Look, it’s fine,” she said with a sigh.

“Oh.”

“But thanks for making tacos.” Ahsoka grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help you set the table.”

* * *

“Sorry I’m late, everyone.”

Ahsoka almost dropped her taco. Rex shook off the rainwater from his clothes then stepped into the florescent light of Obi-Wan’s kitchen.

Which, by the way, florescents? Really, Obi-Wan?

“Rex!” the twins shouted in unison and he quirked a smile their direction. True to her predictions, there was more taco filling on their faces than on their plates. Rex hung a dripping raincoat and hat on a hook by the door, then made his way to the table.

“Not a problem, Rex,” Obi-Wan, always the consummate host, assured him. “I hope you don’t mind, we started without you.”

Rex waved an awkward hand. “Yeah, of course, no worries. Didn’t mean to interrupt, just had a call to take care of at the last minute.”

“Oh? Anything serious?” Padme asked him casually.

“Um, actually,” Rex glanced nervously at the twins, and then oddly enough, at Ahsoka. “Yeah, a bit.” He turned to Obi-Wan. “Doc, I may need your expertise after dinner.”

Obi-Wan levelled a serious look at the sheriff before answering, “Of course. I’d be happy to make a house call. We can fix up a plate for you to take home, if you’d prefer to go now.”

Ahsoka had the feeling it was less of a house call and more of a crime scene, but that was just semantics. Either way, Rex nodded, looking relieved that he didn’t have to explain further. Obi-Wan stood up and moved to his office at the front of the house to gather his med kit.

Padme stood as well and went to the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll just put together a tupperware for the Sheriff.”

Ahsoka had a suspicion that this wasn’t that uncommon of an occurrence and everyone was used to accommodating his policing duties.

“Ahsoka, can I speak to you for a moment?” Rex asked.

“Um, okay,” she said hesitantly. She stood and followed him into the kitchen. Coming to stand next to him in the harsh light of the overheads, she saw bags under his eyes that she hadn’t noticed the night before. His face was set in a frown that looked like it’d been there a while.

“Do you still have that cat from last night?”

Her eyebrows lowered in a frown. “Yes…”

“Right. Look, I think you should come with your brother and me. To a crime scene,” he added, as if that wasn’t clear from before.

“What kind of crime scene?” she asked warily, already suspecting the answer if the town’s doctor slash sometimes medical examiner was needed.

“It’s being treated as a homicide. My deputy and I just finished closing down the scene at the harbor.”

“What does the cat have to do with it?”

He hesitated. “I think the cat belonged to my murder victim.”

Well, shit.

* * *

Rex filled them in on the details as they drove in his truck to the docks. Deceased male in his fifties. Shot between the eyes. Truck driver, based on the rig he was found in, though there was no identification either on his person or anywhere in the cab of the truck. They did find a photograph affixed to the sun visor, a picture of the deceased with a cat. A gray, long-haired cat.

Ahsoka felt a little nauseous, and was glad she’d insisted that Obi-Wan take the front seat.

They arrived at the docks and Rex drove them to an area where shipping containers were unloaded, and the empties reloaded. Coruscant Cove was a small port, but it still got regular deliveries from the smaller transport routes headed inland. It was enough to keep their small dock in business at least.

He parked and Ahsoka immediately got out of the car, stumbling slightly and leaning her arm against the cool, rain-slicked exterior of the SUV.

“Are you alright, Ahoska?” Obi-Wan asked her quietly, softly shutting her door behind her. He knew what she’d gone through in New York so he must have an idea what she was feeling, but she was thankful he wasn’t being overly protective.

She nodded, willing the fear and tumult to subside. And she _was_ fine. It’d just been a while since she was at a crime scene, especially a murder.

“Everything okay?”

Ahsoka straightened and saw Rex standing near the hood of the car, brow pulled down and a concerned look directed at her.

“Yup, all good. Let’s see your scene, Sheriff.”

She walked past both men, aiming toward the yellow crime scene tape and squad cars.

“Ahsoka!”

She startled at yet another familiar voice. There standing next to the cab of a tractor trailer was a figure from her past. He ducked under the tape and jogged towards her.

“Floyd?”

Ahsoka stopped in her tracks and was engulfed by a sudden hug. The deputy picked her up and twirled her around like she weighed nothing more than a light breeze.

She let out a surprised laugh in his arms but felt eyes on her back. When Floyd set her down, she saw in her peripheral that Rex was watching them from a few yards away with his arms crossed.

“I can’t believe you’re a cop now, Floyd,” she said, focusing on the man in front of her.

“Everybody calls me Fives these days.” He gave her a rueful smile that brought back memories of summers spent biking up and down the coast, stopping to swim at beach whenever they felt like it. “You know, like Five-O. My own mother calls me it now.”

Ahsoka let out a surprised exhale of a laugh. “Seriously? And you get away with that?”

“It helps that my badge number is all fives, too.” He shrugged. “But it stuck.”

“Okay, hotshot.”

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on, Tano,” he said more seriously, a gleam of something she couldn’t quite place in his eyes. She was suddenly reminded that they were at a crime scene and that Rex and her brother were watching this little reunion. “I hear you bought the old house on Garfield. If you ever need help with anything on it, I’d be happy to lend a hand.”

“Thanks, Floyd— er, Fives,” she corrected herself with a chuckle. “That’ll take some getting used to.”

He smiled lopsidedly, the seriousness gone for the moment. “Don’t worry, before you know it, it’ll be like you never called me anything else.”

Ahsoka smiled sadly. “Counting on it.”

Obi-Wan cleared his throat behind her shoulder and she schooled her features into a more professional grimace.

“Shall we see the deceased then?” her brother prodded.

Floyd straightened and lifted the crime scene tape for them. “Of course, Doc. Right this way.”

* * *

“So he was found like this?”

Ahsoka shined a penlight into the cab of the truck, the light ghosting over the gearshift and empty passenger seat before settling on the man sitting slumped in the driver’s seat. A single gunshot wound to the forehead.

Rex nodded, flipping through a small notebook. “Yup. Dayshift didn’t notice him until afternoon. Said the rig had been parked here all morning. No cargo attached, so they figured the driver was sleeping it off.”

Ahsoka hopped back down from the running board of the truck and clicked her penlight off.

“And nightshift?” she asked.

“Nobody saw him.” Rex’s mouth twisted into a hard line. “But nightshift has its own problems.”

“Ah yes, those thefts I keep hearing about.”

“Among other things,” he answered cryptically.

Obi-Wan, who’d been on the phone with the hospital one town over arranging an ambulance, wrapped up his call and joined them at the side of the truck.

“They’ll be here in about half an hour,” he told them.

“Good. Thanks, Doc.”

“Not a problem. In the meantime, I’ll do a preliminary examination of the body here and let you know if I see anything.”

“Be my guest.” Rex opened the door to allow Obi-Wan better access inside.

Ahsoka watched as Obi-Wan checked over the body, then turned back to Rex. “You said there was a photograph?”

“Right.” He pulled a plastic evidence bag out of his coat pocket and handed it to her.

Ahsoka turned it over in her hand and squinted at the sun-faded polaroid. It was definitely the deceased. He was sitting at a picnic table, arms spread behind him as he lounged on the bench. The gray cat was perched on one of his meaty thighs, resting his front paw on the man’s belly and looking up at him. If cats could smile, Ahsoka was sure that that cat would be grinning widely at his owner.

“So he’s a truck cat,” she said softly, more to herself than anything. “That explains a lot.”

“How so?”

“Just that he seems to like being in a moving vehicle.” She handed the evidence bag back to Rex.

His mouth lifted in a ghost of a smile. “Kinda ironic then that he chose you, isn’t it?”

“Hey, he likes riding in the basket of my bike just as much as anything,” she said defensively.

Rex tucked the bag back into his coat pocket, shoving his gloves off in the same motion. He scrubbed a hand over his face and Ahsoka was again reminded just how worn down he looked.

“Look, I know I can’t officially ask you to take care of a victim’s pet during an investigation—” she scoffed, sure that he was about to just that, “—but until we get some sort of ID on this guy, we can’t contact next of kin to see about transferring the cat to them.” He looked her in the eye, and said measuredly, “It would be a big help if I knew he was with someone I trusted.”

Ahsoka took a long moment to consider his words. She wasn’t doing this for him, she told herself. She was doing it for the cat who’d just lost its owner and was now making himself at home in her dilapidated house.

“Okay,” she relented, and pretended not to admire the smile he flashed her. She flapped a dismissive hand at the truck cab. “But I’m not getting involved in this whole deal.”

“Good, I was about to tell you not to.”

What was it about Rex Fett forbidding her from doing something—something that she already wasn’t planning on doing, mind you—that made her want to do it? She crossed her arms defiantly over her chest.

“Good. Fine.”

Rex huffed a laugh at her and she bristled even more. “Thought that was gonna be harder. I’ve heard the stories about you in New York.”

Ahsoka froze and felt the blood drain from her face.

He seemed to notice her shock, and his face twisted in pained confusion. Rex tried to amend his words, “I just mean, how you’d consult with the police down there, that’s all.”

She took several deep breaths in and out to calm herself, noticing abstractly how the exhales left clouds of white against the cool evening air.

“Ahsoka? Are you okay?” Rex asked. He took a step toward her but stopped himself before reaching out to touch her.

Ahsoka turned away from him, looking back towards the taped off crime scene.

“Obi-Wan?” she called to the open truck door. “I’m heading home, I’ll see you later.”

She faintly heard her brother return the goodbye, then turned on her heel without another glance at the Sheriff and all but ran the two blocks to her house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of an insult to Fives' intelligence to merge him with Floyd, but it was a fun little crossover.
> 
> Also, thank you all for the feedback! I guess this is what I do now? Make up very random AUs that I don't expect anyone to really go for. But I've been real into MSW lately, and this happened...


	3. Chapter 3

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Literally. Ahsoka snickered. And then scolded herself for laughing at her own joke.

But then the valve she’d been fiddling with started to gurgle warningly again and she refocused. This wasn’t looking good. The toilets in this house were cursed, it was the only explanation.

One of the two upstairs bathrooms didn’t even have a toilet when she bought this grand old mansion, just a blocked off hole where the plumbing would’ve gone. And last week the downstairs bathroom sprung a leak so she thought it’d be safer to just shut the water off altogether down there until Ollie came back from Belize—he’d updated his voicemail to say that he’d extended the cruise and now it’d be at least another week until he was back. She wasn’t holding her breath though.

And then Anakin had to go and jinx it.

So here she was, staring at a soon-to-be overflowing toilet and regretting every moment of her life that led to this one. But hey, at least she was getting good at shutting off water valves. But there was obviously a larger problem at work here and tackling it one pipe at a time wasn’t helping. She rushed down the stairs to the kitchen and quickly found the main water shutoff. She yanked it to the closed position with no small amount of regret.

So now Ahsoka had no water. And no plumber. And just about no hope.

After using one of her wrenches to make sure it was fully closed—seriously, could none of the valves in this house turn smoothly?—she climbed back upstairs to sit on the wet tile of her bathroom in her already wet overalls. And then Ahsoka faced the second worst problem of the day so far.

She had to pee.

* * *

“Mornin’, Miss Tano,” a cheery voice called almost immediately after a bell jingled, signaling her entry at the gas station.

“Morning, Letitia,” Ahsoka answered. She smiled tiredly at the portly woman behind the counter.

She’d been up since four this morning, awoken by the telltale rumbling of a leaking plumbing fixture, then dealing with the main water shutoff and mopping up the aftereffects. The gas station down the street from her house was the closest store, but it was still a half mile walk. Ahsoka contemplated buying an energy drink along with the two gallons of water she came here to get, but thought better of it. With her luck she’d just get jittery on the caffeine and then have a heart attack.

“Rough morning, sweetie?” Letitia asked her as Ahsoka navigated through the shelves.

She laughed and it came out a little closer to maniacal than she’d planned. “You could say that.”

Ahsoka’s head turned involuntarily at the sound of a car pulling into the gas station. A Sheriff’s Department cruiser stopped at one of the two gas pumps outside and then the man himself hopped out.

“And it just got worse,” Ahsoka mumbled under her breath. She quickly found the water jugs and then hoisted two onto Letitia’s counter before asking, “Can I use your restroom?”

“Of course, sweetie. It’s just back through there.” Letitia pointed to a hallway in the corner of the store and Ahsoka speedwalked to her salvation.

After she’d peed for what seemed like a solid thirty seconds, she took her sweet time flushing—and marveling at a properly functioning toilet—and washing her hands, but when she stepped out of the restroom she was dismayed to hear the low voice of one Sheriff Rex Fett still chatting with Letitia. There was nothing to it but to get it over with, so she held her head high and walked out and around the counter.

Rex frowned when he saw her and she couldn’t understand why until, “You don’t have a car, why are you at a gas station?”

Ahsoka had the bizarre urge to stick her tongue out at him, but buried it down deep along with her pride.

“Just picking up some things,” she responded casually. She picked up her two jugs of water from the side counter and stood behind him in line, sagging a little from the weight of the water.

“Uh huh.” He seemed confused and disappointed, which were both emotions she felt he didn’t have a right to feel about her. She didn’t have to explain anything to him.

“Your brother told me you were having some trouble with that house of yours, Miss Tano. Hope it’s not too bad off for you.” No one would ever accuse Letitia of keeping her mouth shut, that was for sure.

Ashoka tore her gaze from Rex to face the clerk with a kind smile as she said, “Oh no, not too much trouble. Just some issues with the plumbing today, that’s all. And please, Letitia, call me Ahsoka.”

“You poor dear!” To hear Letitia’s tone of voice you’d think Ahsoka had said that her entire family was murdered. “And with Ollie off to Aruba, too. I told that man not to go for so long. Every time he leaves for more than a weekend, someone has some plumbing emergency.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ahsoka reassured her, painfully aware of Rex following the conversation with interest.

“Well you come and use the restroom here anytime you need, sweetie.” Letitia’s motherly concern almost broke Ahsoka’s heart it was so wholesome. “Davie’s here on the night shift usually and he won’t mind either.”

“Thank you, Letitia. That’s very kind of you.” She’d been hoping for an offer of the sort, but it still felt nice to hear.

“Your water’s completely off?” Rex asked her. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was his _cop voice_ he was using on her. Ahsoka had conflicting feelings about that. On one hand, again, he had no right to ask her anything and expect an answer. On the other, that voice was making her remember better times with him. Like when he’d use it just to get her riled up before they tore each other’s clothes off.

“Mhm.” She nodded with tight lips in his general direction.

He glanced at the gallons of water she was still holding and frowned again.

Letitia also noticed and flustered, “Here, honey, set those jugs on the counter while I ring up the Sheriff.”

Ahsoka did as she was told and then stepped back out of Rex’s personal space again; he hadn’t moved out of the way to make it any easier on her.

“Just the full tank today, Sheriff?”

Rex finally turned away from studying her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“There you go then.” Letitia handed him a receipt. “Have a good day, Sheriff.”

“You too, Letitia.” Rex smiled charmingly at the clerk before walking out of the store with another jingle on the door, and Ahsoka exhaled in relief that the questioning was over.

“Now I mean it, sweetie,” Letitia told her with a finger wag. “Anything else we can do, you let us know.”

“Thank you, that really means a lot.” And it did. Ahsoka had been gone from this town for nigh on twelve years and she’d almost forgotten just how neighborly and helpful everyone could be.

She paid the ninety-eight cents for her water, then backed out the door carrying them.

And right into Rex.

“Fucking—”

“Hold your horses, Soka.” He tried to steady her by grabbing for the water, but she just held the gallon jugs closer and stood her ground. When he was assured she wouldn’t tip over, he backed away a pace toward his SUV idling at the curb. Rex cleared his throat. “Apologies.”

“No worries,” she told him rigidly. “Bye.” Ahsoka made to step around him but blocked her again.

“Soka, let me drive you home.”

Ahsoka scoffed. “It’s just down the road. I’m fine.”

He scowled at her and levelled a glare that could peel paint, but didn’t say anything.

“And stop calling me Soka,” she threw in as an afterthought.

Rex let out a frustrated sigh. “Will you just let me help you?”

Ahsoka shifted as she stood on the sidewalk—the water jugs _were_ heavy—and she saw Rex’s eyes track the movement. He seemed ready to spiel some other futile argument at her so she cut him off before he could open his mouth.

“Fine. You can drive me home,” Ahsoka allowed reluctantly. “But that’s it.”

If possible, Rex’s scowl deepened, and she absently wondered if he actually did have the power to peel paint off a wall. The whole exterior of her house needed a good scrape, maybe she could hire him. But no, that’d go against the ‘not getting anywhere near him if she could help it’ mandate she’d given herself just last night.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and opened the passenger side door of his cruiser. “Just get in, Ahsoka.”

She grudgingly climbed into the seat and rested the gallons on her legs, curling her arms protectively around them. He got in a moment later and started the engine. The sound of his blinker as he turned onto the street might as well have been the siren for how loud it felt inside the car.

Finally after a couple blocks of uncomfortable silence, he let out a frustrated growl. Without turning to face her he said, “Can’t you stay with one of your brothers while you fix the house?”

“Anakin doesn’t have the room to spare and Obi-Wan has a boarder in his guest room,” she recited. Being their _friend_ , he should really know this. “And besides, it’s fine.”

Rex sighed. She wasn’t giving him much to go on. She almost felt sorry for him.

“There’s got to be other plumbers you can call.”

Ahsoka shrugged. “Next closest one is in Theed and that’s too far for a multi-day project like this.” The plumber there had been listed in Ollie’s voicemail as his emergency backup, but when she’d called, she’d gotten runaround excuses until finally a flat-out no.

Ahsoka hadn’t even _met_ Ollie but she already had a list of things to complain to him about.

“No friends in town you can crash with? At least until Ollie’s back?”

She gave him a look, and he wisely shut his mouth until they pulled up to her house. The tires had barely stopped moving when she’d opened her door and jumped out, heaving the water jugs along with her.

“Well, thanks for the ride, Sheriff.”

Rex looked like he still wanted to say something, but she quickly slammed the door shut again with a nudge from her hip.

* * *

“Ahsoka?”

She startled awake and for one horrible second didn’t know where she was.

Then she recognized the faded gaudy loveseat in the bay window of her bedroom and the last month and a half came rushing back to her. Right, Coruscant Cove not New York.

A soft purring by her feet further illustrated the fact. The cat was curled up at the foot of the bed, apparently having joined her for a mid-morning nap.

She blindly reached for her phone on the nightstand and squinted as its screen illuminated the darkened room. 11:12 am, she’d slept for just over two hours.

“Ahsoka, are you home?”

Obi-Wan’s voice carried up the stairs and she groggily sat up and straightened her nap-wrinkled clothes. She’d crashed not long after Rex had dropped her off, the late night and early morning catching up to her.

She cleared the sleep from her throat and called down through the open door of her bedroom, “Up here!”

The sound of his footsteps on the stairs came next, then he appeared at her doorway and lightly knocked on the frame. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at finding her in bed.

“I brought your laundry back,” he said, and held up the patched laundry bag in his grasp.

“Oh, thank you. I completely forgot it last night.”

“Quite all right. Satine ran it through the dryer after you left.”

“That was very kind of her.”

Obi-Wan revealed a small smile. “Yes, it was.”

Ahsoka thought about teasing him for his obvious fondness for his boarder, but she just didn’t have it in her today.

He dropped the laundry inside the door then came over to sit beside her on the bed. He petted the cat affectionately for a few strokes then he looked her over and frowned. “Ahsoka, are you all right?”

She brushed off his concern, “Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just had an early morning and another plumbing problem.”

“What is it now?”

“Well, I kind of… don’t have any water in the house. Just temporarily until I can fix some pipe issues.”

Obi-Wan hummed his ‘I don’t like this situation’ hum and she had a flashback to being a teenager and getting caught trying to sneak out of the house after dark.

He sighed, but moved on to the subject she’d been most hoping to avoid. “Right, but what I really meant was the crime scene last night. I saw how affected you were, and then you ran off with barely a goodbye. Rex was about to go after you until I stopped him.”

She exhaled sharply in a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have been too thrilled if he had.”

“I figured as much.” Obi-Wan paused. “He asked about you after you’d left. About what happened.”

Ahsoka stiffened. “And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing other than that you decided it was time to come home and that if he wanted to know anything else, he should talk to you.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

“Of course.” He found her hand on the bedspread and held it, running his thumb over her knuckles soothingly and seemed to carefully weigh his next words. “You know, if you ever do want to talk about it… about anything really. I’m a good listener.”

The echo of gunshots in a dark alley rang through her mind and her heart beat an erratic rhythm. But she was here, in her home and with her brother. And that was the past.

Ahsoka gave him a small smile and clasped his hand tighter. “Thank you. Someday.”

He nodded, then cleared his throat a bit and stood up awkwardly. “Right, well I should get back to the office. I’ve got a patient coming in at noon.”

She stood up with him and they walked out of her bedroom and down the steps to the foyer.

“Oh I forgot to ask, how’d the autopsy go?” she asked as she opened the front door for him.

Obi-Wan shrugged and answered clinically, “Just a partial autopsy since cause of death was clear. Fatal gunshot wound to the head. The Sheriff is still waiting on a lead from the truck’s registration to ID him. Apparently it’s registered to the trucking company, not the driver.”

“Did you get a time of death?”

“Sometime eighteen to twenty-four hours before we got there, putting it roughly between 6pm and midnight the night before.”

She thought of the cat’s soft meows from her tree that night. It’d been just after 11pm when she’d first noticed it. Had the cat run away from his owner right before his death? Ahsoka shook the thoughts away. She was _not_ getting involved in this.

“Well, I hope the Sheriff catches the killer,” she said instead of the myriad other follow-up questions she had.

Obi-Wan paused with the door open. “Ahsoka, I don’t presume to know where you’re at with all this.” She glowered at him, annoyed that he was bringing this up again. “But maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, working the case with the Sheriff. Get back on the horse after you fall, and all that. You could treat it as a writing exercise. It might help your writer’s block.”

“My writer’s block?” she asked indignantly. “I’m doing just fine writing. It’s just taking a bit longer than I expected to put a story together this time around.” A bit longer than her publisher had expected too.

“Well regardless, it couldn’t hurt. I know you had a good relationship with your precinct in the city.“ He kindly pretended not to notice her flinch. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start building a professional relationship with the Sheriff’s Department here in Coruscant Cove too, if you’re planning to stay long term.”

A professional relationship with Rex. She didn’t know if that was possible at this point. But she _had_ always worked better with at least one other person to bounce ideas off of. And she wasn’t too bad at this crime solving thing, if she said so herself. The nostalgia of her old life in New York hit her fiercely.

“I don’t know…”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Just think about it.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” He beamed at her, and she had the sneaking suspicious she’d just been tricked into something. “Now I really must be off. Have a good rest of your day.”

And with that he stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind him.

* * *

The rest of her day was filled with chores around the house she’d been neglecting during her plumbing disasters. She finally got out to the roof, confirming that there were indeed several patches needed at the very least. For now she set up tarps and buckets inside under the leaks and hoped for the best.

Later in the afternoon she rode her bike down to the hardware store for supplies and hopefully a recommendation on a roofer. One who wasn’t on the vacation of a lifetime through the Caribbean, like Coruscant Cove’s plumber.

“Ah, Ms. Tano!”

Ahsoka jumped as she placed her new paint scraper in the basket of her bike. Behind her on the sidewalk was an elderly man leaning on a cane and looking at her expectantly.

“Um, hello…” she said.

“Oh, how rude of me,” the man said with put-upon fluster. “The name is Sid Palpatine.”

Ahsoka wracked her brain for why that name sounded familiar. She was sure she’d heard Padme bring it up recently. “You’re on the town council, right?” she asked as she finished loading her purchases into the basket and turned to face him fully.

“My reputation precedes me! Yes, my dear. And I hear that you bought that old house on Garfield not too far from my humble business. I must say I was surprised to see that falling down shack with a sold sign out front,” he chuckled and Ahsoka had a sudden urge to kick his cane out from under his wrinkled hand.

“Well, it’s a wonderful house. Just needs a little love,” she said shortly, not returning his patronizing smile. “But you said your business is nearby?”

“Oh yes, perhaps you’ve heard of Coruscant Shipping?” he asked smugly.

“You own the shipping company at the port?”

He mistook her shock as impressed admiration and puffed out his chest. “Owner and CEO. I made it into what it is today.”

Seeing as the only fact she knew about his company was that there’d been a murder on its premises in the past forty-eight hours, she wondered what he was bragging about.

Palpatine’s smarmy grin died on his lips as he took notice of her bike’s basket.

Ahsoka eyes narrowed and she glanced down herself, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. The paint scraper, a pair of new garden sheers for those overgrown hedges in her yard, and a pack of stuffed mice toys for Gamble she’d seen near the checkout counter at the last minute. She was hoping to get him to start catching the real mice that scurried through the house at night and finally start pulling his weight as a roommate.

“Do you have a cat, dear?” Palpatine finally asked with a carefully blank expression.

She shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I guess. Kind of a recent addition.”

His eyes took on a calculating look and the smile he unfurled was more predatory than not.

“Well, I won’t keep you. It was a pleasure to meet Coruscant Cove’s newest celebrity resident.”

“Yes, well. Nice to meet you too, Mr. Palpatine,” she said awkwardly, happy she didn’t have to make small talk with him any longer but jarred all the same by his abrupt ending of the chat he’d initiated.

“Please, call me Sid. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other again and I’d love to be friends.” He clasped her hand with one of his clammy ones and shook it with hardly any strength behind it. “Goodbye, dear,” he said, then turned without waiting for a response and limped back down the sidewalk.

Ahsoka watched as he crossed the street and got into the passenger side of a large black SUV. It merged smoothly into traffic and sped away from downtown. She shook her head as she unlocked her bike and swung a leg over the seat.

Sid Palpatine, huh.

She got now why Padme did a full body shiver when his name had come up in conversation. Something about this interaction rubbed her the wrong way too. Like he’d been waiting for her specifically. This whole scenario was getting more and more interesting and Ahsoka had a feeling she’d landed right in the thick of it. Whether she liked it or not.

Maybe it was time to take Obi-Wan’s advice and stop paddling against the current that was obviously pushing her right into this murder investigation.

As she biked home she ran through her options. Keep pretending not to care about this case, even when clues landed in her lap like the creepy business owner going out of his way to introduce himself to her. With that option it would be much easier to keep avoiding Rex and everything else in her past that still stung. When she left New York she swore to herself that she was done sticking her nose in dangerous situations just for the thrill of it.

But it had never really been for the thrill of it, had it? These things just kept happening to her and around her, and people needed her help. The defenseless deserved someone on their side who looked at all the facts before jumping to conclusions, and she just happened to be very good at deductive reasoning. She thought about the polaroid of Gamble and the smiling truck driver who was now lying dead in a morgue.

Which led her to her other option. She’d felt that familiar tug in her gut when Rex had brought her to the crime scene and had tried to push it down. But it was still there, connecting clues in the back of her mind and urging her to ask questions. She could fight it all she wanted but she was an investigator at heart.

Ahsoka stopped pedaling and coasted to the side of the road, pulling up on the gravel shoulder. She was on a stretch of seaside highway that overlooked one of Coruscant Cove’s beaches. The salty wind blew through her hair and ruffled her shirt sleeves. She took in the picture-perfect scene in front of her and made a decision.

She would get to the bottom of this murder. For Gamble and his owner. And maybe along the way she’d find some of her old confidence too.

A horrible decision probably.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alcohol, backstories, and break-ins.

“So, I said to her, I said, ‘Lucille, I don't care what your husband says. You wear your hair any way you like.’”

Ahsoka smiled as she inhaled the familiar scents—and sounds—of the beauty parlor on Main Street. Her foster mother, bless her heart, had no idea what to do with Ahsoka’s natural hair when she’d first landed on their doorstep, so they’d spent a lot of time at the beauty salon. It became their ‘thing’ they did together and probably what she missed most after her mom died. She relaxed in the nostalgic scene around her before she was noticed by the women in their chairs reading magazines that were probably as old as she was.

“A.B. Tano, as I live and breathe!”

She grinned. “Hey, Loretta.”

All the chatter skidded to a stop as the women turned round eyes and slack jawed mouths her way.

Loretta didn’t miss a beat. She set down a curling iron she’d been using on a client and strode over to take Ahsoka’s hands in hers. “That brother of yours said you were back, and living in the old house down on Garfield to boot, but I told the ladies he must be lying because how could our little Ahsoka be back in town and not drop in for a touchup to that beautiful hair of yours!”

Anakin sure got around in the gossip channels of Coruscant Cove. She assumed it was Anakin, at least, but the crime fit.

“Haven’t really had time for a haircut, ma’am.”

“Oh of course, dear.” Loretta gave her a tight hug, her poofy hair cushioned against Ahsoka’s shoulder. “You know, we’ve read all your books. Haven’t we, ladies?”

A chorus of assents and praise for her novels followed and Ahsoka’s heart swelled once again. How could she have left this town and everyone in it for so long without so much as a backward glance?

She had to clear her throat a bit before she could respond, and Loretta gave her a small, sad smile. “Thank you all. I didn’t realize so many people here knew I was a writer.”

“Knew you were a— Honey, oh honey.” Loretta looked at her with equal parts pity and shock. “The whole _town_ reads your books. I swear, the day they’re released is the busiest day for the bookshop all year. It’s practically a town holiday!”

Okay, so she definitely underestimated how much this town cared about her. _Still_ cares about her.

“That’s right,” a woman in one of the salon chairs chimed in. “I got mine as an _electronic_ -“ she said each syllable as if they were a different word “-book last time just so I didn’t have to wade through that crowd. Just loved the hunky detective in that one, dear.”

“Oh, thanks, Mrs. Molloy,” Ahsoka said meekly. The hunky hero had also been grizzled war veteran who solved a serial killer case, but most people tended to comment on the romance element of her stories.

“And those murders!” Mrs. Grant exclaimed from beside her friend. “I have to drink a big glass of chardonnay during those scenes.”

“Girls, let’s not overwhelm the poor dear,” Loretta shushed them. “Ahsoka, honey, can I give you a trim?”

Ahsoka smiled ruefully. “Actually, I’m here for some gossip.”

If possible, the noise level in the beauty parlor doubled as the ladies launched into sordid tales about their friends and neighbors without any further prompting.

* * *

“Do you have a ride home, Ahsoka? Or can I call someone for you?”

“Oh, I’ll just walk to Obi-Wan’s house and get him to take me home.”

“Okay, dear,” Loretta allowed. She opened the front door of the parlor for Ahsoka. “And if you need any more intel, you know where to find us!”

Ahsoka cringed at her volume. By morning the whole town would know she’d been scrounging for rumors.

She squinted against the late afternoon sun as she walked the short distance down Main Street to Obi-Wan’s home slash office. The beauty parlor ladies had been more than willing to spill the town’s secrets when she’d hinted this might be research for her next book, but were even more forthcoming when Loretta brought out the champagne she saved for special occasions.

As she walked, Ahsoka wrote down the most important details she wanted to make sure she remembered in the small notebook she took with her everywhere. This thing had saved her life more than once, figuratively and literally.

“Sister!”

She jolted from her hunched over scribbling to see Anakin waving at her from Obi-Wan’s front porch. Ahsoka squinted at him as she stowed the notebook back in her pocket. “What are you doing here, Skyguy?”

“The twins are at karate class, so sometimes I come over to Obi-Wan’s to hang out instead of wait there. Those karate moms can be intense.” He shuddered dramatically.

Ahsoka tried not to let the sting of jealously take hold in her heart, even though she felt so out of the loop with her family’s lives. Her brothers seemed to have such an easy relationship, and while she knows it wasn’t always that way, she still felt left out sometimes by the simple ways they interacted. She did this to herself though, and she’d have to be the one to reach out to them.

“Mind if I join?”

Anakin’s face lit up in a boyish grin and she felt that part of her that whispered she wasn’t wanted here retreat to the back of her thoughts.

“Sure! Pull up a chair, Obi-Wan just went inside for some tea.”

She climbed the steps just as Obi-Wan stepped out onto the porch carrying a tray. “Ahsoka, what a wonderful surprise! Are you staying for tea?”

She gave him a small smile. “Yeah, if that’s okay?”

“Of course, of course. Let me just get another cup and I’ll be right back.” He set the tray down on the porch railing and then let the screen door slam again on his way inside.

Ahsoka sat down on one of the wicker chairs next to Anakin, who was already pouring them both cups of green tea.

“So you guys do this often?” She tried to sound casually curious.

“Well karate’s every week, but some weeks I pretend to make nice with the other parents. Padme says I need more friends,” he scoffed at that. “I’d argue I have too _many_ friends, if anything.”

The screen door creaked open as Obi-Wan returned from inside. He set another cup down on the tray for Anakin to fill, asking, “Telling her about our kara-tea tradition?”

Ahsoka let out a surprised giggle. Maybe that champagne was starting to kick in. “You call it— oh, God, really?”

“Karate, tea. Hence, kara-tea,” Anakin reasoned.

“Yes, unfortunately the name has stuck,” Obi-Wan added with a sigh.

Anakin took a sip of his tea then asked, “So, what brings you to the bustling downtown of Coruscant Cove?”

“I had an errand at the beauty parlor…”

“Oh? I suppose this errand wasn’t to get a haircut.” He reached over and fingered a strand of her ponytail. Ahsoka was mildly offended by his implication, but couldn’t actually deny it. She was surprised Loretta let her leave without a trim.

“Let me guess,” Obi-Wan said. “It had something to do with the previous owner of your new houseguest?”

“Possibly,” she said guiltily, but her brothers took it in stride.

Obi-Wan set down his teacup with a small smile. “Well, let’s hear it.”

Anakin nodded. “Yup, you always write better when you talk it out. Come on, Snips. Lay it out for us.”

They looked at her expectantly and Ahsoka was hit with a sudden wave of _belonging_. Even when she was away living in New York or traveling in some far-off place, she could always call her brothers when she hit a rough patch—in writing or otherwise—and know they’d be there for her.

“Uh, well— word at the beauty parlor is that the shipping company is shady.” She flipped open her notebook and read her scribbles. “The boss, a Mr. Sid Palpatine, is a slimy character, which more or less confirms my read of him too. On the town council, acts the part of conscientious citizen, but most of the ladies don’t like him for one reason or another.”

“Yeah, Padme won’t say it because she has to be nice to everyone, but she hates that guy,” Anakin added. “He’s got most of the local businesses with any sort of trade operations in his pocket because he’s the only shipping company big enough to get stuff from farther down the coast.”

She wrote that new detail down in her notes and then continued, “He keeps a clean image though, so no one’s been able to catch him on anything. The ladies said he’d been away for a while, then showed up again out of the blue about ten years ago flush with cash. He’s been getting his hands in all levels of town business since then.”

“That sounds about right,” Obi-Wan mused, stroking his beard. “If I remember correctly, he bought out the owner of the shipping company and invested a large sum into it. Everyone on Main Street thought he was crazy, but it seems to have paid off for him.”

Ahsoka flipped her book closed. “And I’d bet he either got that seed money through some bad means, or is keeping shady books to have inflated the business so much so quickly. Or both.”

Anakin looked at her thoughtfully. “You know, Ahsoka, you probably could’ve gotten all this information from Rex. I bet he’s got a file a mile long on Palps there.”

She made a show of sliding her notebook back in her jeans pocket and then continued to avoid answering the question by taking a long sip of tea.

Obi-Wan took pity on her and said, “I’m sure Ahsoka just wanted to reconnect with the ladies at the beauty parlor.”

“Yeah, definitely,” she agreed quickly. “Mom used to take me there practically every week. And then Padme took me later on.”

“She does love a good blow out.” Anakin smiled fondly before shaking himself slightly. “But, no, that’s not it. Why are you avoiding Rex? I get that you broke up with him, but you live in the same town again. You’re gonna have to talk to him sometime.”

Ahsoka frowned and set down her teacup on the railing. “Is that what he told you? That I broke up with him?”

Anakin and Obi-Wan glanced at each other. Anakin hesitated, then said, “Well, no. We just kind of assumed from how it all turned out...”

Well now a few things made a little more sense. Namely why her brothers hadn’t tried to beat Rex up at the time. Those few weeks after they’d broken up were mostly a blur for Ahsoka, but now that she thought about it, she couldn’t actually recall telling anyone the full story of what happened.

She let out a bitter laugh that was choked with the beginnings of tears. “Yeah, how it all turned out... You mean me running away with my tail between my legs.”

“All right.” Obi-Wan stood up decisively and took one of Ahsoka’s hands to pull her up from her seat. “Anakin, bring the tea things. And call Padme, tell her to get the twins from karate.”

Ahsoka startled but let herself be half-dragged toward the front door. “What? No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll just—”

Anakin spoke up as he started to gather their cups, “Nope, Obi-Wan’s right. Not getting rid of us now, Snips. We owe it to you to hear the whole story in your own words.”

Without further protest, Obi-Wan led her inside and past his medical office to the living room. Satine was sitting on the couch there reading a book and looked up as they entered.

“Oh hello, Ahsoka.” Then she did a double take at something she must have seen in their expressions and quickly shut her book then stood ungracefully. “Um, do you need anything?” she asked nervously.

Ahsoka smiled at her, somewhat heartened by the fact that even someone as put-together as Satine could get flustered. “I wouldn’t say no to alcohol at this point,” she said with a sigh.

If they were going to do this, might as well do it right.

“Cabinet above the fridge, Satine,” Obi-Wan told her, leading Ahsoka to the couch Satine had just vacated. “Bring four glasses, please.”

“Oh, I don’t think I should stay…” Satine wrung her hands.

“Nonsense, you’re perfectly welcome to witness Ahsoka have a breakdown,” Obi-Wan said matter-of-factly. “Right, Ahsoka?”

Ahsoka thought about it and found it didn’t really matter. Like Anakin had said earlier, she did her best writing with other voices around. “I honestly don’t mind, Satine. It might be good to have an outsider’s perspective.”

“Okay, if you’re sure…” she said meekly as she left to go to the kitchen.

“You don’t mind, right?” Obi-Wan asked Ahsoka quietly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, but Satine’s been feeling a bit isolated lately.”

Ahsoka waved off his concern. “It’s really fine. I like Satine.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes crinkled with his warm smile. “Good. Me too.”

Anakin joined them and set the tray down on the coffee table, then saw Satine enter with a bottle of whiskey and whistled. “Okay then, guess it’s that kind of night.”

When they were all settled in Obi-Wan’s plush couches with two fingers each of whiskey in their glasses, Anakin looked at Ahsoka for a long moment before speaking.

“So…” he began. He took a bracing sip from his glass, winced, and then started again. “So Snips, let us tell you how we all thought it went down and you correct us when we get it wrong.”

Ahoska nodded and took her own sip, hiding behind her glass and hunkering down in the couch seat. She was both dreading this conversation and painfully curious about what their impressions were from this time.

“So you’re eighteen,” Anakin said to the room. “About to go off to college, you and Rex have been together for about two years at this point. But you want to see the world, do big things.”

“Right so far…” she said warily.

“You didn’t know which school you were going to go to until you got your scholarship,” Obi-Wan added. “Which is when we started noticing you and Rex having problems.”

Ahsoka stared into the amber liquid cradled in her hands. She’d waited on the front steps for weeks for the letter, Rex often joining her to pass the time. He’d already started to become distant around her, but she’d chalked it up to nerves about their next steps. Rex was set to go to the state school a few towns over while Ahsoka had only applied out-of-state. But they’d agreed that they could make long-distance work for them.

Looking back on it, she wondered if he’d ever considered giving long-distance a shot or if he’d just been waiting it out until she left at the end of the summer.

“But you stayed together through the summer, and then about a week before you were set to go to New York…” Anakin looked from her to Obi-Wan.

“We didn’t know what happened,” Obi-Wan said softly. “You’d said you were having problems, and then one day it was over, and nothing or no one could stop you from leaving practically right then and there.”

One corner of Ahsoka’s mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “Yeah, I was… well I was an idiot. But I was hurt, so I ran away. Just like he said I would.”

Obi-Wan set his own glass down and went over to where was curled in the corner of the loveseat. “Oh, Ahsoka, we’re so sorry. We just assumed—"

“If we’d known it was him who…” Anakin gritted out between clenched teeth before swallowing the last of his whiskey. “I would’ve kicked his ass, Snips.”

“Don’t worry,” Ahsoka reassured them, letting out a watery laugh. “I gave as good as I got. I said some pretty awful things to him.”

“So why did he do it? Did he say?” Satine asked. Ahsoka had almost forgotten she was there. She looked thoughtful, if a bit intimidated by all this personal information.

“He said he didn’t want to hold me back from whatever I was meant to do.” Another laugh bubbled up from that hollow place in her chest. “I guess he was right in the end. I finished the draft of my first book by the end of that year.”

Satine gaped at her. “You wrote _The Corpse Danced At Midnight_ in your first year of college?”

“Yeah, didn’t submit it to publishers for another couple years. But all the major parts were written in those first months I was in New York.”

“Wow,” Satine croaked, looking a little starstruck.

Ahsoka’s freshman roommate hadn’t been so impressed with all the middle of the night typing and anti-social behavior.

Obi-Wan was looking at her pensively. “Well that explains quite a bit.”

Right. The plot of that book had been… not very uplifting. The heroine was fiercely independent, solving the mystery on her own and eventually exposing the detective assigned to the case as a dirty cop.

“Why didn’t you tell us, Snips?” Anakin asked forlornly.

Ahsoka shrugged. Those first few months in New York had been some of the best and worst of her life. Some days she’d walk for hours through all the avenues and parks just to let it all sink in. There was so much to see and do and learn in a city of millions, but she’d also never felt so alone.

“I felt like… and I know this wasn’t really the case, but I felt like everyone had abandoned me.” At her brothers’ hurt expressions, she rushed to continue, “It really wasn’t your fault. It’s just, I left and you all had your own lives. And you didn’t ask me why.”

Tears shone in Anakin’s eyes, and this, this right here was exactly why she’d never told them. Ahsoka knew now that it wasn’t anyone’s fault but back then it’d been quite a bit harder to look at it from a rational point of view. Their parents had passed a few years before and Obi-Wan had taken on custody of Ahsoka, but he'd already started his practice at that point and was working long hours. Anakin was in college and wrapped up in his relationship with Padme. Everyone's lives were going places and she was left with a gaping hole where her planned future had been.

“It’s really fine, guys. I didn’t mean for this to be a sob story. I came home for Christmas that year and I realized it was all in my head for the most part. Then I went back to school, actually made an effort to meet people, and declared an English major. And the rest is history,” she said with a shrug.

“Well, I think it sounds like you just needed to work through some things on your own before you found your place,” Satine declared matter-of-factly.

“Exactly,” Ahsoka agreed gratefully. It hadn’t been all bad. In some ways she felt like she needed to go through that heartbreak to grow up and give herself the push she needed to take risks in life. Plus, she secretly thought it made her a better writer. Write what you know, as they say. And she knew emotional turmoil like the back of her hand. “My life in New York was what I needed at the time. But now I’m home, and I’m happy to be here.”

“And we’re happy you’re here too,” Obi-Wan said, patting her hand.

Anakin nodded vigorously. “Yup. Very happy.”

“Thanks, guys,” she said. She looked at her brothers’ determined expressions and remembered her earlier thought. “But I’m serious, don’t go after Rex now. We didn’t work out, and I’m still not his biggest fan these days, but that doesn’t mean you need to automatically hate him on my behalf.”

Anakin looked like he wanted to say something but Obi-Wan cut him off. “No need to worry, Ahsoka. We’re all adults here,” he said with a pointed look to Anakin.

“Yeah, yeah,” their brother agreed with a frustrated snort. “I suppose the statute of limitations has passed for this kind of thing.”

Ahsoka nodded and drained her glass. “Right. And besides, I’ve decided to get back in the mystery solving swing of things so that probably means I’ve got to get used to the idea of working with Rex too.”

He frowned and seemed to mull this over, then asked hopefully, “So Sunday dinners?”

Ahsoka groaned, playfully offended that he forgave Rex so quickly. “Fine. But don’t expect me to be best friends with him, all right?”

He grinned. “Of course not, Snips.”

* * *

“You know, when I said I would try being nicer to Rex, I didn’t mean right this minute,” Ahsoka said exasperatedly from the backseat of Anakin’s minivan.

Anakin lolled his head in her direction. “Nonsense, Snips! No time like the present.”

She laughed, “You’re drunk."

They’d had another drink after the soul-bearing was over with and Ahsoka learned that her big brother was still a lightweight. Ahsoka didn’t want to brag, but her drinking abilities were famous in certain cop bars in the city. But Satine was the only one of them who was completely sober, though that was probably because she barely drank any of her first pour.

“Here we are,” Satine called from the driver’s seat, rousing their attention. She parked in a spot outside the Sheriff’s station and unlocked the doors.

“Don’t forget the bread!” Obi-Wan blindly tossed a brown paper bag behind him and Ahsoka let out a surprised shout as it hit her squarely in the chest.

“Right, wouldn’t want to forget my excuse to be here at—” She peered around the seat in front of her to look at the clock on the dash. “Ten o’clock at night.”

“That’s the spirit!” Anakin slurred. He slapped her on the shoulder in what she assumed was supposed to be an encouraging pat.

She sighed and unbuckled her seatbelt, exiting the van and ignoring the rest of her brothers’ well-meaning, yet unhelpful whistles and cheers. Ahsoka flipped them off as she slammed the sliding door shut behind her. Their cackles of laughter faded into the night as the car drove away.

It was only when she was standing in front of the door to the station that she really considered what she was doing. The chilly night air tried its best to clear her thoughts, but she shook her head and forged ahead anyway.

She shoved open the heavy door and promptly dropped her jaw in shock. The station she remembered from her one visit here for a civics class in high school was gone, and in its place was a clean and contemporary space. The walls were now a warm white and the heavy beadboard and molding was gone. Sleek and functional wood desks were arranged against the walls so that they were all facing each other with an open space in the middle. And sitting at one of those desks with his feet propped up was Rex.

She dropped the paper bag of homemade bread that Obi-Wan had thrown at her on one of the low filing cabinets separating the bullpen from the public waiting area and leaned an elbow on the lacquered wood counter.

“Fancy station like this and Sheriff doesn’t even have his own office?”

Rex startled and dropped his legs from the desk with a painful sounding thud.

She cringed and said in a softer tone, “Sorry, didn’t realize you were sleeping.”

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of a hand and swiveled the chair to face her, blinking a couple times as if to convince himself it was really her darkening his metaphorical doorstep.

“Yeah, guess I dozed off for a second. Been a busy week.”

The gravel in his voice went straight to her core and she felt her face growing hotter.

“Um, well I just came to drop this off for you. It’s bread. From Anakin.”

The confusion on Rex’s face was plain as day… or night in this case. “Bread?”

“Yeah, he’s been experimenting with baking now that the twins are in school. I keep telling him he needs to just get a job… But you can’t tell him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.” She shrugged. Her brother rivaled her in bouts of creativity warring with apathy.

Rex nodded, still looking a bit perplexed by what was happening. If she was being honest with herself, Ahsoka was too. This was the longest polite conversation they’d had since she’d been back.

“Thanks.” He stood up and shuffled the papers that had been lying on his lap, and moved around the room. Someone who didn’t know him would think he was just going about his business, but Ahsoka saw the wandering that didn’t seem to have an immediate purpose.

She cleared her throat and felt pinpricks of sweat on the back of her neck. “Thank you, by the way.” He paused mid-step and turned to look at her, a frown pulling on his face. She rushed to continue, “For letting me tag along at the crime scene last night.”

“You haven’t seen anything else, have you?” he said, voice back to the serious Sheriff register that she’d heard too many times over the past couple days. She willed herself to remember that he was just doing his job.

“Nothing out of the usual.”

He didn’t seem completely mollified by that. He’s just doing his job, she told herself again. He’s looking for anything that could be a clue in this case, that’s all. But she ran through some of their previous interactions and tried to look at them impartially. Despite the obvious toll this murder and string of thefts was taking on him, there was something else. Something making him more irrational than he should be.

“Rex, are you…” Ahsoka hesitated, aware that she was being a hypocrite. It wasn’t her place to worry about him, but she couldn’t help it. “Are you okay? It’s just, you seem to be taking a lot of this case personally.”

Rex stared at her with wide eyes. He blinked in rapid succession and she had the odd sensation that she’d just unintentionally revealed something to him. It was a long moment before he responded.

“My first job after— after moving away was in a suburb of Boston.” Ahsoka frowned at the change of topic but he continued his story. “I learned a lot about policing in a bigger city and got a lot of experience I needed.”

Ahsoka winced at a memory of her shouting that he would never get any experience if he stayed in this town forever.

“Even got on well with some of the other cops. But after a while I started noticing the ones who were on the take. Organized crime was a big deal in that area and our precinct was no exception. I brought it to my Captain, and do you know what he said?”

Rex looked at her and she wished she could comfort him somehow. She’d seen enough corrupt cops over the years to know a good one from a bad one.

“He said to shut up about it,” he spat. “Keep my head down and maybe someday I’d get a cut too.”

The half door to the bullpen squeaked as Ahsoka swung it open. She crossed the room and sat in one of the desk chairs facing his across the open space. She didn’t say anything, just kept a neutral expression as she listened.

“So I reported him.” Rex shrugged as if this was a throwaway detail, but she knew what an accusation like that against your own Captain would get you and it wasn’t pretty. “After my part in it all was over I transferred back to Maine. A town further north had a spot open. Stayed there a couple more years, but I realized it wasn’t home. Saw that the Sheriff here was retiring, and it was like fate. I didn’t have any family here at that point, but it was still home, all the same. And your brothers welcomed me back and made me feel like I was doing something right by being here.”

“Why are you telling me this, Rex?”

He shrugged and lowered himself heavily into the chair she’d caught him sleeping in earlier. “Because you’re finally calling me Rex again,” he answered simply.

“Oh,” Ahsoka said. He watched her face closely for a further reaction, but she didn’t know what to think.

“You asked if this case was personal to me,” he continued after a long stretch of heavy silence, still making eye contact. “I guess it was always going to hit a nerve. Those shipping manifest discrepancies have been going on for a while, and there’s no way the owner of the shipping company, and probably the harbormaster too, aren’t in on _something_. And today I sat through yet another town council meeting where Palpatine acted the innocent business owner. But I didn’t start losing sleep and running myself into the ground until Padme happened to mention that you’d bought that old house.”

She thought they were past the bashing on her house. Ahsoka opened her mouth to tell him so—

“The house not two blocks from the docks and sitting on the most direct route into town from the port,” Rex said meaningfully. Another long beat of silence followed, wherein Ahsoka’s mind reeled.

“You’re telling me…” She stood and paced to the end of the bullpen, then turned on her heel to face him again. “You’re saying you’ve been so worked up about all this, and giving me grief about my house, just because I live near your suspected hotbed of criminal activity?” Her voice rose at the end until it was near a yell.

“Yes!” Rex stood up as well and suddenly they were nose to nose, staring wide-eyed at each other, and Ahsoka couldn’t recall how she got so close to him. “I was worried about you, Soka!”

She groaned and cried, “Why do you have to be so confusing!”

“How am I confusing?” he shot back, glaring at her.

“ _You_ broke up with _me_ , Rex!”

He had the decency to look chagrined at that, but she wasn’t having it.

“So you don’t get to tell me that you’re worried about me, when you made it perfectly clear back then that I’d never be what you wanted.” She stabbed a finger into his chest and he stumbled back a pace. Her voice was low and deadly. “You were it for me. I would’ve stayed in Coruscant Cove for you, if that’s what you wanted. But you didn’t. I wasn’t good enough for you then, and I’m sure as hell not good enough now, right?”

“Ahsoka, that’s not…” He let out a frustrated growl and stalked back toward his desk, putting distance between them again. “I didn’t say you weren’t good enough—”

“Really? Because it sure sounded like it!”

“I said you didn’t belong here!” Rex roared, and she flinched. He took a deep breath and made a point to lower his voice. “Not back then, you didn’t. I was trying to let you have a life outside of this town that you couldn’t wait to leave. Sure you were going somewhere else for college, but I knew you’d always be tethered back here because of me and I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t know what, but I knew you were meant for bigger things.” He settled back into the chair and a sad smile twisted the corners of his mouth up. “And I was right. Look at what you’ve accomplished. I couldn’t live with myself if I was the one to hold you back from that.”

Ahsoka hadn’t felt like crying during this conversation until that moment. She cleared her throat and said in a voice just above a whisper, “I would have made it work. _We_ would have made it work.”

“Maybe. Or maybe we would’ve drifted apart until the distance was too much, and then the pain would’ve been even worse.” There was a deep sadness in his voice, and it hit her that he thought she would have been the one to break it off. He didn’t think _he_ was good enough for her.

“You didn’t even try. You gave up— on us, on me!” The anger felt good, singing through her veins like it had that summer day when he’d ripped her heart out.

But unlike that day, he didn’t try to defend himself. Rex stared at her, a rawness to his expression that she’d never seen before. “You’re right. And by the time I realized it, it was too late. I actually thought about reaching out.” He let out a sardonic laugh. “But then your first book came out.”

A part of her reveled in his hurt. She’d written that book with him in mind, even if it wasn’t wholly consciously. The antagonist even resembled him, albeit an exaggerated and vilified version of him. She didn’t think anyone else who knew him would’ve put it together, but they didn’t call her the master of subtlety for nothing.

“I read it one sitting. Couldn’t put it down. But afterwards I knew I didn’t have a chance.”

“Didn’t like it?” she joked, secretly fearing it was the truth.

“It was the best piece of writing I’d ever read. I knew you were a good writer, but I hadn’t realized just how good until then,” Rex said seriously, and she smiled despite herself. “But the story… Well, let’s just say that’s when I knew I’d really fucked up.”

“Yeah, well…” she began. How could she explain that she’d swept up the broken pieces of her heart and taped them together into that book? She decided to not even try. “It doesn’t matter anyway. That was a long time ago.”

He smiled sadly. “Yeah, you’re right.”

They stared at each other from their sides of the room until Rex cleared his throat and turned back to his desk.

“Actually, the cop in your book helped me realize what was going on in my first precinct. Those invoices that the dirty cop rolled up and hid in his shower rod?” He chuckled to himself. “Well, it wasn’t too far off what those guys were doing in real life. Just sub invoices for a burner phone with all their mob contacts, and the shower rod for a dummy light switch cover.”

Everybody leaves behind a paper trail, one way or another.

“Light switch cover, that’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that…” she trailed off.

A paper trail. This operation they had going on at the docks was just like any other premeditated crime, and that meant there were clues somewhere. Something they’d missed or overlooked. Or just maybe, some _one_.

Ahsoka gasped. “I have to get home.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Rex asked, bewildered.

“No time!” She raced out of the bullpen towards the front door of the station.

“Wait, let me drive you at least!” he yelled after her, hot on her heels. Ahsoka pulled up short in front of the door, hesitating for a fraction of a second.

“Okay, but step on it."

* * *

They raced through the quiet streets of Coruscant Cove. Ahsoka stopped him from turning on the sirens, still not telling him what she expected to find at her house in case she was wrong, but not wanting to draw attention all the same.

At her behest, Rex slowed down and turned off his headlights when they neared her house. They quietly exited the cruiser and stepped onto the curb. It seemed quiet enough at first glance but when she peered closer at her house, she caught the edge of a flashlight beam shine behind a gauzy curtain in the living room.

Rex must have seen it too. He unholstered his sidearm and stepped in front of her.

“Stay by the car, Ahsoka.”

She just scoffed at the order and followed behind him as he crept toward the house. He looked back at her over his shoulder and sighed but didn’t try to persuade her further.

Rex tried the handle when they reached the front door. It clicked open easily, and they shared a glance just before he pushed the door open. They silently made their way to the living room and then Rex flicked on his Maglite, aiming it and the sidearm at the figure standing by the old dining room set in the corner of the room.

“Sheriff’s Department, freeze!”

The figure was clad in all black, down to a ski mask covering their face. How original, the mystery novelist inside Ahsoka thought. The person startled, but quickly recovered and ran out of the room toward the backdoor in the kitchen. Rex attempted to follow but tripped over a lamp and several other items strewn about the floor. They’d interrupted a good old-fashioned ransacking, by the looks of it.

Ahsoka helped Rex up and they ran to the back of the house in time to see the person disappearing out the kitchen door and into the night.

“Fuck!” Rex exclaimed, jogging outside but promptly losing sight of them. He turned back to the house defeated.

Ahsoka started flipping lights on inside to assess the damage. The kitchen cabinets were all flung open but otherwise seemed untouched, but when she got back to the living room the real chaos began to unfold. The slipcovered couches that had stayed in the house through the sale were turned over, some of the cushions ripped so their stuffing spilled out. One of her bookshelves was on its side, books scattered around it on the floor. The painting supplies she’d left in one corner were everywhere, luckily the paint cans still had their lids but rollers and trays of dried paint were tossed carelessly throughout the room.

She abandoned the first floor and hurried up the creaking stairs.

“Gamble?” she yelled. The cat had to be here, had to be okay. The intruder was obviously looking for something in her house, and she had a sneaking suspicion that something was around Gamble’s neck.

Ahsoka ran into her bedroom, the only fully furnished room up here and again noted the tossed furniture. He must have started his search up here.

She heard a distant meow, reminding her of the one she’d heard coming from her tree the night this all started. Ahsoka skidded back out to the hallway and looked around wildly. The cat meowed again, and she could have sworn it came from… above. There was no third floor to this house, just a crawl space that she hadn’t yet been brave enough to hoist herself up into.

There was however a stretch of ceiling in the third bedroom that was left exposed to the rafters above. She assumed there had been some past water damage that someone fixed structurally but never finished replacing the plaster over.

She walked carefully into that room, noting that there was no signs of the intruder in here. Probably because there wasn’t anything in the room to destroy or search through.

“Gamble?” Ahsoka called again.

Another meow, definitely coming from where the ceiling should have been. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and a pair of glowing cat eyes peered back at her.

“So that’s your hiding spot, huh?” The cat stared calmly back at her. “Well if you got yourself up there, I assume you can get down again.”

But she wanted to confirm her suspicions and know what she was dealing with here, and fast. She heard Rex clomp up the stairs and she raised her voice to ask him, “Sheriff, can you bring the ladder that’s in the hallway over here?”

Because yes, she did have two ladders. She was the type of person nowadays to have a downstairs ladder and an upstairs ladder. The doorman from her Manhattan apartment would be laughing for days if he could see her life now.

Rex’s footsteps paused and then she heard the clang of the metal ladder being lifted. “Back to Sheriff, hm?” he said when he entered the small bedroom.

She rolled her eyes at him even though he couldn’t see it in the dark, then took the ladder and set it up under the exposed rafters. Ahsoka started climbing but stopped halfway up when the cat jumped lightly down onto the top rung.

“How’d you know he was up there?” Rex asked as she descended with the cat in her arms.

She shrugged and scratched Gamble’s chin. “Just asked him.” She cocked her head back toward the hallway. “Come on, there’s no overhead light in here.”

Rex followed her to the hallway and leaned against the doorframe. “So I’m assuming you know what’s going on?”

“I’ve got a hunch. Didn’t put it together until you reminded me about that shower rod trick from my book.”

She continued scratching Gamble’s chin as he purred, but shifted him so one of her hands was free to reach up and turn his collar around for a better look. The leather was strangely thick on one side. She’d originally thought it was just a defect, but now she wasn’t so sure. Feeling around the edges, she grinned triumphantly when she found a small sliver in the seam. She pinched it open and tipped the collar toward her palm. A tiny square of metal dropped into her hand.

“What the…”

Ahsoka smiled in grim triumph and held the small object up to the light. “A flash drive. I believe we just found our paper trail.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lost the thread of this and had to do a bit of searching to find it again. The story ended up taking a turn away from the slow-burn side of things, which I think was my block in the first place. I don't know about you, but a story full of unknowing reciprocated feelings just annoys me. Thanks again for your patience and reviews :)

Ahsoka stared hard into the green eyes looking back at her.

“What are you hiding…”

He blinked slowly, mockingly, back at her.

“Talking to the cat again, I see.”

Ahsoka gave one last long look at Gamble, who’d lost interest in her interrogation quite a few minutes ago and was now taking a bath. Then she turned to face Rex.

“I just don’t get it,” she said heavily.

They’d plugged in the flash drive she found in Gamble’s collar and found a spreadsheet with pages and pages of numbers and abbreviations. What those numbers and abbreviations _meant_ though, was not clear.

“Why keep a secret spreadsheet—information that the bad guy clearly doesn’t want us to have—but not list any names or dates or anything that could actually help us solve this damn thing!”

Rex sat down on the other end of the couch and handed her a beer from the six-pack he’d brought over. It was the night after the break-in and she’d finally been allowed back in her house after Rex’s deputies had finished sweeping it for evidence. Not that they’d found anything. The intruder had been wearing gloves and the only signs of point of entry were some scratch marks on the lock indicating it’d been picked.

“These things take time, Soka,” Rex said with a calm that irritated her.

“There must be a key that he used to cross reference it…”

Rex snapped his fingers. “Oh forgot to tell you, we finally got an ID on our John Doe. His name is Jim Quincy, resident of Kentucky but doesn’t look like he has a permanent residence there. No family that we can find either.”

Ahsoka frowned and looked back at Gamble who’d settled on the coffee table. There’d be no one coming to pick him up and take him home then.

“He didn't expect to be killed. He made that spreadsheet, whatever it tracks or lists, for himself. Not with an outsider reading it in mind. Or maybe expressly to hide its contents from the _wrong_ kind of outsider..." she trailed off. Jim Quincy was in over his head in something. "Why did it take so long to find out who he was?”

“Fives assures me he sent in the request for the trucking company’s DMV records, but when I finally called them myself, they said this was the first they were hearing of it. He’s a good deputy usually, just a bit of an airhead sometimes.” Rex passed a hand over his face tiredly.

Ahsoka was about to make a quip about how clumsy Fives had been this morning when he was dusting for fingerprints when the house shook in a clap of thunder. Gamble briefly lifted his head, stretched, then went back to lounging on the table.

The lights flickered for a few quiet seconds, then stayed dark. Ahsoka opened her phone’s flashlight.

“This has happened a few times, I’ll check the breaker.” She headed for the utility closet off the kitchen where the circuit breaker was.

Rex called out to her just as she reached it. “It’s not just your house, whole town lost power.”

“Fuck,” Ahsoka said under her breath. She still tried flipping the switches off and on, but nothing happened.

Rex was already dressed in his rain jacket again when he found her in the kitchen. He held up his radio that was emitting more static than words. “Getting reports from all over town. I’ve gotta go in to the station.” He studied her face for a long moment. “Do you want to come with me? Or I could drop you off at one of your brothers’ houses?”

She was shaking her head before he’d even finished talking. “No, I’ll be fine. I should stay here and secure the storm shutters. I guess I forgot about it with all the excitement last night and today, but the news said this tropical storm would have some high winds.”

“I could help you…”

Ahsoka smiled at him and uncrossed her arms. “That’s very sweet of you, Rex, but you’ve got a whole town to save.”

Rex still looked uncertain, probably picking up on her unspoken tension. “I’ll come back once I’ve got everything squared away at the station.”

Something had shifted last night. Ahsoka had been so mad at him while they argued at the station barely twenty-four hours ago. But that conversation had been more than a decade overdue and it felt like some festering wound inside her had finally scabbed over and started to heal. She’d told herself for years that she was over their relationship, and she was, for the most part. They’d been kids when they knew each other, and they were different people now. But maybe who they were now was okay too, better even.

Yesterday she would have laughed and told him to keep dreaming. But today? After he’d stayed by her side through all the aftermath of the break-in, reassuring her brothers that she was fine and could handle herself. He’d only left when the rest of the cops had already finished up and released the scene, then showed right back up on her doorstep an hour later with Chinese food and a six-pack of her favorite local beer.

Ahsoka gave him a small smile and came to stand in front of him. He hadn’t zipped up his jacket yet and she ran her fingers up the open front until she reached the collar. Rex was holding his breath as she stepped further into his space. She rested her elbows on his shoulders, hands carding lightly through the hair on the back of his skull.

“Soka?” She didn’t think he meant to whisper, and with the storm raging outside she barely heard him.

Ahsoka kissed him lightly on the lips then. Just long enough to get her point across. When she pulled back, he chased her mouth and the kiss deepened. She hadn’t expected him to reciprocate quite so assuredly, but wasn’t complaining. They finally parted and Rex rested his forehead on hers, both of them breathing heavily.

“I really do need to go,” he said with regret. Despite his words, she felt his arms where they were hugging her lower back tighten.

“I know.” Ahsoka leaned back enough to look him in the eyes. “Be careful.”

He grinned and kissed her again briefly on the corner of her mouth. “Always am.”

She let her arms drop and stepped back again, feeling the chill creep in where his warmth had been pressed against her body.

Before he left, Ahsoka slid a spare key off her keychain and pressed it into his hands.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he told her, and then he dashed out into the dark rain.

* * *

Total blackouts in the city were rare, but when they did happen, it was as if all sense of decency and order flew out the window. Lootings, muggings, people getting into brawls over fender benders. But it was the sky that really freaked Ahsoka out. Usually she could forget how blank it was by focusing on the distraction of streetlights and skyscrapers. But with the power out it seemed like there was nothing separating the inky blackness above from the earth beneath her feet. One continuous sense of smothered darkness.

It was during one of those blackouts that she found herself now. Rationally Ahsoka knew she wasn’t really in New York City. The edges of her vision and hearing had that frayed quality of a memory, and the scene in front of her was moving both too fast and too slow to be real life. But she wasn’t thinking very rationally right then.

People ran past her, their dark clothes swirling around them to obscure their faces. They ran into the intersection in front of her and cars with blinding headlights swerved wildly to miss them, the blaring of horns cutting into the otherwise too quiet night.

Ahsoka knew what would happen next but fought it. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time she could save her.

Detective First-Grade Barriss Offee had been Ahsoka’s primary contact in the NYPD for just over three years at that point, their working relationship slowly evolving from a begrudging—and at times flat-out unwilling—shadowing mandated by the department higher ups to a real partnership. Ahsoka had worked long and hard to prove to Detective Offee that she wasn’t just a useless tagalong, or worse, a liability. And in the past year or so they’d really hit their stride. Ahsoka had little say in what cases Offee got assigned, but somehow or another they were always interesting in their own way, and more than a few of the lessons she’d learned through working with the NYPD had wound up in her books.

“Tano!”

Ahsoka’s head swiveled sharply toward the opposite corner of the intersection. Offee was wearing the same clothes as she always was in Ahsoka’s nightmares, a dark peacoat that hit her knees, open at the front to reveal her navy-blue formal uniform with medals pinned to her chest.

Ahsoka never knew why the uniform. Offee hadn’t been wearing it that night and Ahsoka had only seen her partner in it a handful of times over the years. She supposed it was her mind’s manifestation of Barriss Offee’s dedication to the force. Or it was just sick irony.

Cars were stopped in the street, halted by the sudden absence of traffic lights and general confusion that hung thick in the air. Offee made to cross the street toward her when they both saw him. The suspect they’d been chasing for weeks. The victim’s brother, jealousy and spite finally consuming him and leading him to kill. He’d played the part of grieving family to a T. Ahsoka had been on her way to meet her partner to arrest him when the blackout started, then got held up by chaos in the streets.

The starless night cast shadows over everything except for her partner and the man holding a gun. Ahsoka tried to run toward them, tried to do anything to stop what she knew was coming, but her limbs were frozen.

Two gunshots, one right after the other.

At first Ahsoka had thought there was only one and the sound ricocheted off the buildings around them to trick her into hearing double. But in the coming days and weeks, she would go over those seconds countless times until the gap between the first and second shot was all she could focus on. Sometimes it felt like that silence between stretched on for an eternity.

Ahsoka felt a scream die in her throat as she bolted straight up in bed. Her bedroom door slammed open and she jumped. In the next moment she recognized Rex’s pale, moonlit figure and she sagged in relief.

“Ahsoka!” He skidded to his knees beside her bed and grabbed her shaking hands. Rex’s eyes searched first the room then traced over her body.

It was several more seconds before she regained her breath, and even longer after that before she could speak.

“’M sorry,” she said finally. The gunshots still rang in her ears. “Nightmare.”

Rex bowed his head, resting it on one of her hands he still held. She felt him exhale deeply before he made to stand up from the floor but Ahsoka tightened her grip on his hands. This physical connection was the only thing grounding her at the moment and without it she feared she’d float away on the fear racing through her heart.

His eyes softened as he looked at her face again. Their hands stayed clasped as he rose and then sat on the bed beside her legs.

“I just got back, I thought—” Rex’s voice shook. He frowned and looked down at their hands again. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

She didn’t, not really. But the department-mandated psychologist had encouraged her to talk about her nightmares and she found it actually helped. Sometimes talking about your demons was all that was needed to take away their power.

Ahsoka drew in a shaky breath and let it out again. “It was my partner. Back in the city. She was killed trying to arrest a murder suspect.”

“Oh.” He paused, searching her face. “I didn’t realize you had a partner. Being a civilian and all.”

“Let’s just say the mayor was a fan. I asked for a favor— to shadow a detective for a month or so. But it stuck. Barriss was the head homicide detective of one of New York’s busiest precincts, and no amount of complaining on her part could get rid of me.”

“Ah, the dedication of _The Triple Crown Murders_.”

Ahsoka smiled despite the pain still lingering. “Stalwart detective, steadfast friend,” she recited, then raised an eyebrow at him. “Bit of a super fan, huh? Guess you and the mayor of New York City have something in common.”

He shrugged, not embarrassed in the least. “I was curious.”

“Not curious enough to google me? There were plenty of articles about the cases I helped Barriss on.”

“Felt like an invasion of privacy. I knew you were doing okay for yourself. The one allowance I gave myself was reading the little biography on the back of your books.”

Ahsoka stared. “Wow. I definitely googled you. Had an alert set up and everything, but you’re pretty boring on the internet.”

“Oh, really.” A silly grin spread across Rex’s face, until he shook his head a bit. “We can talk about you stalking me later. What happened in your nightmare?”

She sighed, “The same thing that always happens. There was a blackout that night too. Blown power station up the river. Barriss had called me before the power went out and said she found a clue pointing to victim’s brother. She was going to arrest him and asked me to meet her there. A few blocks away from his apartment the cab I was in got stuck a traffic jam, so I walked the rest of the way. I was almost there when I saw them across the street. I guess she surprised him as he was leaving the building. My dream always ends there, me watching from a distance, unable to move.”

Rex wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Soka.”

Ahsoka leaned her head into his palm. “I guess the storm knocking the power out reminded me of that night. Haven’t had that dream in a while.”

He kept his hand on her cheek, its comforting warmth seeping into her skin. The rain still lashed at the windows, but the wind seemed to have died down somewhat.

“Um, would you…” she began in a halting voice. “Would you mind staying here the rest of the night?”

Rex nodded. “Of course, whatever you need.”

He kicked off his shoes and undid his utility belt, then grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it on the floor between the nightstand and the bedroom door.

“Rex,” Ahsoka groaned. “I meant _here_.” She patted the space beside her on the mattress.

“Oh… Are you sure?”

Ahsoka would’ve called the sight of him rubbing the back of his neck and looking between her and the floor cute. Would’ve, if not for her frustration that he still didn’t seem to _get it_. She was done living in the past—at least her conscious mind was. Not to sound like a cliché writer in her own mind, but that chapter was over, and she wanted to start living in the present.

“Get in the bed, Sheriff.”

Rex’s eyes widened comically. “Yes, ma’am.”

He walked around the bed and pulled back the covers, settling gingerly on the mattress and leaving a good two feet of distance between them. Ahsoka sighed again at his restraint and moved so she was snuggled up against him. She picked up the arm closest to her and wrapped it around her back. Tingles erupted on her side when his hand flexed against her t-shirt.

“Thank you for being here,” she said into his chest. He pulled her closer to him and shifted to get more comfortable.

“I’ll always be here for you.”

Ahsoka shut her eyes and tried to make herself believe him.


	6. Chapter 6

“Yup, you got roots,” a gruff voice said from under the kitchen sink.

Ahsoka frowned. “Roots?”

The kitchen cabinet gave a loud creak as the man halfway inside it shifted and then lifted himself out, letting out a groan himself as his back straightened.

“Yup, roots.” Ollie began coiling up the scope kit he’d been using to see into the house’s pipes. It seemed that was all the explanation he felt was necessary, though Ahsoka was still in the dark.

“Tree… roots?”

The balding plumber guffawed. “Well I never seen crabgrass roots bisect a water main.”

Anakin laid a hand on her shoulder before she could do something stupid like telling her plumbing savior another pipe she’d like to bisect. He shook his head minutely and Ahsoka harrumphed.

“Can you fix it?” Anakin asked, cutting to the chase.

“Oh sure, sure. It’ll just take me a day or two to clear ‘em out and replace a few sections." Ollie finished packing up his toolbox and turned back to face them with an easygoing smile.

Anakin punched her shoulder with just enough force to be on this side of painful. “See that, Snips? I told you Ollie was the man!”

She smiled tightly. “How soon can you start?”

“Just gotta pick up some parts and I can get started this afternoon,” Ollie said evenly. “From all those voicemails you left, I already had you on the books to come see as soon as I got back from my cruise with the missus. But when Madame Mayor gives you a ring and asks for a favor,” he smiled like he was letting her in on a secret. “Well let’s just say you’d best listen and hurry it up a bit.”

Anakin turned a smug look towards her. He tried to nudge her with his elbow, but she managed to evade it this time.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ahsoka mumbled, swatting a hand at him to get him to act a bit more like an adult.

Ollie tore a piece of paper off his pad and handed it to her, stuffing the carbon copy in the bib pocket on his overalls. She read through the supplies he’d listed and the estimated cost, and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the arm and leg she’d been expecting.

“That storm last night might’a even helped out, looks like some of lines may’a been blocked by debris but they been washed through.”

“Blessed by Mother Nature herself!” Anakin proclaimed as they followed Ollie out the backdoor.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Rein it in, Skyguy.”

“What? You’re gonna have water again, Snips! Water—inside the house even!”

She felt a reluctant smile slip past her determination of not getting her hopes up. “Yeah, that’ll be pretty nice.”

They turned back inside once Ollie had driven off and Ahsoka began tidying up the kitchen in preparation for whatever work he was going to have to do there later today.

“Have some company last night?” Anakin said with a smile in his voice. She looked over to see him leaning in front of her open fridge and holding up a carton of Chinese food between his fingers.

“Maybe I got that myself,” she said defensively. “Or got delivery.”

The fridge door slammed shut as Anakin straightened and crossed his arms. “One, that place doesn’t deliver. And two, it’s on the other side of town—too far to bike in a pre-tropical storm. But…” He drew out the word and Ahsoka wanted to punch him. “Very close to a certain Sheriff’s station.”

She froze and desperately tried to think of an innocent reason Rex had brought her Chinese food. Well, it had been innocent. It’s not like they did anything last night other than sleep, fully clothed in Rex’s case.

“Relax, Ahsoka. I’m only teasing.”

 _Phew_. She mentally patted herself on the back for dodging one over protective brother speech.

“I know he spent the night here.”

Ahsoka choked on the sigh of relief she’d begun to exhale.

“Actually two nights I guess, if you count the whole home invasion thing the night before,” Anakin said thoughtfully. He poured her a glass of water from one of the massive water cooler jugs he’d ostensibly come over to give her. Ahsoka now realized he was actually here to gloat. “Relax, will ya? Jeeze, I didn’t think it’d be this big a deal.”

Ahsoka stared daggers at him. “Big deal?” she asked incredulously. In all the ways she’d pictured this playing out Anakin had been the one freaking out, not her.

Anakin ran a hand through his shaggy hair, finally starting to look nervous at her reaction. “Yeah, I mean, when we came by after the break-in you said everything was fine, right? And you guys looked…” He noticed her glare and gulped. “Cozy?”

She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“Were we wrong?” He sounded sheepish, but continued, “Obi-Wan said I was jumping to conclusions, but then I saw Mrs. Nu at the café this morning and she said she saw Rex’s cruiser parked here this morning when she was walking her dog.”

Small town, right.

“No, you’re not wrong,” she relented with a sigh. “I just didn’t want this to be a whole thing yet.”

Anakin lifted a corner of his mouth in a wry smile. “Sorry to break it you, kid, but Coruscant Cove doesn’t exactly keep secrets well.”

“I’m beginning to realize that.” Ahsoka leaned her head back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.

“Well, are you gonna leave your favorite brother hanging, or are you gonna spill the details?”

She cracked her eyes open to glare at him again. “You are easily my _least_ favorite brother right now.”

“Hey, who got Ollie here practically straight from the gangplank of a cruise ship?”

“Padme,” Ahsoka said with a straight face.

Anakin gasped and put a hand over his heart.

“Look, why do you even care? I thought you were fine with Rex— For fuck’s sake, you pushed me out of your minivan to force me to talk to him!”

“I know, I know. In my defense, I was very drunk that night.” Ahsoka scoffed. Yeah, Padme had sent her a selfie of her holding Anakin’s hair back while he puked. “But I also care about you and want you to be okay.”

Anakin sat at her kitchen table and patted the chair next to him for her to sit too. When she did, he gathered her hands in his and looked at her seriously.

“Okay, I’m only going to say this once because I value my reputation as a cool and aloof older brother.” Ahsoka rolled her eyes again and he tightened his grip on her hands. “Obi-Wan is better at this kind of thing, but we decided that we would both offer. So if you ever need to talk about… you know. Or anything else. I’m here. To talk to.”

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes at him. Anakin and Obi-Wan discussed this? “What does this have to do with Rex?” she asked.

“Well, we know we fucked up the last time. You were obviously hurting after your breakup with Rex and we weren’t there for you— ah, ah, Snips!” he said when she made a noise of disagreement. “Whatever was going on, we should’ve seen that something was wrong. So we’re not going to let that happen again.”

“But you guys _have_ been there for me! You came to the city—” for the funeral, she skipped over the words, “—and _you_ even stayed.” Her brothers had both come to the funeral, but Anakin stayed with her for weeks after, making sure she was eating and taking care of herself. She didn’t know what she would’ve done without him. And he’d eventually helped her come to the conclusion that she needed a change of scenery.

He smiled softly and Ahsoka noticed his eyes shining suspiciously. “And I always will. But this thing with Rex—I know it’s new and maybe it won’t even work out, and that’s fine. But we love you. And we just want you know you can talk to us. You know, if you need to.”

Ahsoka’s chair was pushed back noisily as she got to her feet and threw her arms around his neck. She felt wetness gathering in her own eyes and hid her face in his shoulder. Anakin chuckled and patted her on the back.

A throat cleared in the kitchen doorway and Ahsoka looked up to find Rex watching them awkwardly.

“Um, sorry… I can just—” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder and made to turn around.

“Rex, buddy, we were just talking about you!” Anakin stood from his seat, bringing Ahsoka up with him, and tucked her into his side with an arm still over her shoulder.

Rex’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. He looked between Anakin and Ahsoka. “You were?”

“Yup!” Anakin said too brightly. He ruffled Ahsoka’s hair, probably messing up her braids, then fished his keys out of his jeans pocket and handed them to her. “Snips, why don’t you go bring in the bag that’s on my front seat. Padme picked out some clothes she thought you’d like.”

Ahsoka looked at him suspiciously but took the proffered keys. She pinched him in the side where she still had her arm around him, but he didn’t flinch. They stared at each other for a solid five seconds, communicating in silent sibling language.

“Fine.”

As she left the room, she heard Anakin’s low voice, but couldn’t make out the words. After she’d gotten the bag and threw it blindly onto the landing between the first and second floor, she walked cautiously back into the kitchen.

Anakin cut off whatever he’d been saying to Rex as she walked in. He pivoted them both with an arm thrown over Rex’s shoulders, but with none of the softness he’d used with her. His smile was once again just a tad too big to be natural. Rex’s eyes were wide and the faintest hint of a blush was creeping up his neck.

“Snips! You try on those clothes? Padme called them ‘cute but you can still change a tire in them,’ whatever that means,” he said, making air quotes with the hand that wasn’t currently squeezing Rex’s shoulder.

“I’m sure they fit great…” Ahsoka trailed off as she studied Rex. “You okay there, Sheriff?”

Rex glanced at Anakin then back to her. “Never better.”

“That’s the ticket, buddy!” Anakin released him with a clap on the back that knocked Rex a step forward.

Ahsoka sighed and stepped further into the room to kiss Rex on the cheek. He stiffened, staring at her. Ahsoka shrugged. And when she looked over at him, Anakin had the same smug smile on his face as he did when he’d been taking credit for Padme’s corruption getting a plumber on her doorstep.

Rex cleared his throat again and addressed her. “I was just stopping by to see if you wanted to join me on a trip to the docks. I figure now that the storm has passed it’s as good a time as any to question Palpatine again. Maybe he’ll slip up.”

“Excellent!” Anakin hopped up onto the counter and made himself comfortable. “I’ll stay here and wait for Ollie to get back.”

Ahsoka felt an Anakin-sized headache coming on. “Don’t you have children? Where are they?”

“They’re at school, duh.” He rolled his eyes. “Hey, you got any beer?”

Ahsoka groaned and rested her forehead against Rex’s shoulder. She felt his chuckle rumble through him and then his hand rested on the small of her back, apparently over his shock at PDA in front of her brother.

“There’s some in the fridge,” Rex told him.

“Oh, really?” her brother said with barely contained knowing glee. Ahsoka was reminded that he had already snooped in her fridge, so he probably knew the answer to that question before he asked it, and probably also guessed who brought it.

“Oh my god.” She turned her head so that she was still leaning against Rex but could see Anakin attempting to open the fridge without getting off the counter. “Just— don’t burn my house down while I’m gone, okay?”

“Sure thing, Snips!” her brother said brightly, his left foot dangling precariously close to her toaster as he sprawled across the counter.

She sighed for the millionth time since Anakin had knocked on her door that morning and took Rex’s hand. “Let’s go before he embarrasses me further.”

Rex laughed and let himself be dragged outside behind her.

* * *

“Sheriff Fett, Miss Tano! What a wonderful surprise!” Palpatine spread his arms from behind a large solid wood desk, welcoming them as they entered his office. Ahsoka felt like she was squinting through near darkness in the room, as if the lights in here had been dimmed purposefully.

Rex pulled out a notepad from his jacket and skipped over pleasantries. “We’re here to ask you a few questions. Where were you last night?”

If Sid Palpatine was surprised by his lack of friendliness, he didn’t show it. He leaned back in his chair and made a show of thinking over his answer. “Well, I finished up at the office around eight, then I went home. My assistant can verify the time. You know Mal, don’t you, Sheriff?” He smiled at them over his steepled fingertips.

“We’re acquainted,” Rex grunted after an uncomfortable pause. Ahsoka wondered what his history with this assistant was.

Palpatine snapped his fingers. “Oh right, of course. He did mention that you’ve been paying us some… unexpected visits the past couple weeks.”

A faint growl emanated from Rex’s throat. “Been a lot of suspicious activity in this part of town lately. You wouldn’t know what that’s about, would you?”

“Well there was that unfortunate death on the property, but as I told you then, I’ve never seen that man before,” he said. “I read in the paper he was an employee of one of the transportation companies we work with? Certainly not one of my men. I have rigorous background checks run on everyone I employ, but sadly, the same level of importance on moral quality is not valued in other companies.”

“Are you implying something about Jim Quincy?” Ahsoka snapped.

“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Palpatine turned to her placatingly. “I had heard though that there may have been some ties to unsavory individuals… perhaps mob related? Those truck drivers—” he chuckled gratingly. “They do get around after all. Perfect for transporting side business along with the legitimate cargo that honest people like myself hire them for.”

“Know a lot about organized crime involvement in the shipping industry, Palpatine?” Rex asked. Ahsoka noticed he hadn’t written anything down on his notepad and had clenched the pen so hard his knuckles were white.

“As a concerned business owner in the industry, one must be aware of the potential dangers to look out for. Nothing more, Sheriff.”

They stared at each other, Rex’s frustration making no impact on Palpatine’s outwardly calm demeanor.

“Can anyone vouch for how you spent your time after you left work, Mr. Palpatine?” Ahsoka asked, breaking the tension.

“Naturally, dear,” he answered. “I was at a business dinner in Bangor with several associates. We stayed at the restaurant until around midnight. I can have my secretary send you a list of their names and contact information, if you’d like.”

“Please do,” Rex gritted out. “And Mal? Where was he last night?”

Palpatine chuckled again. “I’m afraid my eyesight at night is not what it used to be, and I really don’t drive myself much anymore at all. Mal often serves as my driver, just as he did last night to and from Bangor. My associates will confirm that he joined us for dinner.”

“Right. Thank you for your time, Mr. Palpatine.” Rex flipped his notepad shut and turned to leave.

“Always a pleasure, Sheriff. And of course, Miss Tano, you are welcome here anytime.”

A shiver ran down Ahsoka’s spine at his oily voice. Rex held the door to Palpatine’s office open for her and she quickly escaped through it. Once they’d backtracked out to the main entrance and stepped into the sunshine, she rubbed her arms through the sleeves of her light jacket.

“Well that was a waste,” Rex snorted. They walked back to the small parking lot of the shipping company’s offices.

Ahsoka tilted her head back and forth, considering. “Not entirely. Even through all his creepiness, I’m willing to bet we rattled him a bit. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.”

Rex raised an eyebrow at her and bumped her playfully with his shoulder as they walked. “Sounds like you’re plotting out a character there. So what would the bad guy do now in an A.B. Tano page-turner?”

“Easy. Tie up loose strings and finish the job.”

“Ah, but we don’t even know what the job is, remember? We don’t know what that list on Gamble’s neck means, and we don’t know why his owner was killed and your house was broken into for it.”

“Don’t we?” Ahsoka grinned privately. “It’s like our friend Palps said back there. The mob has its hands in all sorts of things.”

“You believed that mob story? He’s been peddling that for years, trying to blame anything he can on mysterious thugs and out-of-towners. It’s all just a bunch of xenophobic garbage to throw the spotlight on anyone but him.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. It was possible she was wrong, but she didn’t think so. “Or maybe he’s hiding in plain sight. Cultivating the rumors so he can use them for his own gain.”

Rex shook his head. “Ahsoka, I don’t know if you remember this, but Coruscant Cove isn’t the crime epicenter of the world here. We’re a long way from the nearest big city. Not exactly a hotspot anyone would want to smuggle contraband into _or_ out of. By ship, truck, or otherwise.”

“Ah, but it’s not always about the destination. Sometimes it’s about the journey.” They’d reached the car and Ahsoka tapped her temple with a smirk in his direction before sliding into the passenger seat.

Rex sighed heavily, still standing in front of his open door. “I have no idea what you’re talking about but, unfortunately, I’m sure I’m about to find out.”

* * *

“How do you want to handle this?” Mal asked. He fidgeted in one of the uncomfortable visitor chairs in Palpatine’s office.

Palpatine watched through the blinds of his office window as the Sheriff and A.B. Tano walked closely together to his parked cruiser. How interesting. Perhaps there’d be a way of exploiting that.

“Our Sheriff’s nighttime visits have become tiresome,” he told his assistant. The blinds snapped back into place. “Put an end to it.”

Mal’s lip curled in pleased anticipation. “You got it, boss.”


	7. Chapter 7

The last time Rex had done any surveillance on Coruscant Shipping was the night of the murder. He hadn’t known it then of course, but Jim Quincy was probably killed while he was sitting in his car just off the property. He’d been led away—intentionally or not, and Rex was leaning toward the former—by Mal driving a semi on a nonsensical path through town and then finally to the I-95 on-ramp where he’d lost him. Rex was convinced they knew he was staking out the shipping company, and knew he’d follow if he thought Mal was up to something.

Which made him feel all the more stupid that he’d let himself get fooled by it. They’d probably cleaned up the scene of the murder, using that wild goose chase to keep his nose out of it.

So this time he was trying to be a bit smarter. Palpatine had another warehouse listed under the company’s holdings, one Rex hadn’t known about until a deeper dive into his financials uncovered it. Out in a more remote area outside of Coruscant Cove, the warehouse would be the perfect place to house illegal goods. And he was going by the book now. Rex had gone to the county judge this morning and presented his evidence to get a warrant to search all of the company’s properties. The paperwork had just gone through and Rex wasn’t wasting any time. If there was evidence to be found, he’d find it legally and through good policework. No subterfuge, no secrets.

Well, one secret, he thought with a grimace. He hadn’t told Ahsoka what he was doing tonight, just that he had to work. Rex knew she had fears about something bad happening to him on the job. Well-founded fears, to be sure, but he still didn’t want to dredge up her past if he could help it. His other deputy Jesse was on dispatch duty tonight and knew where he was, even if Rex didn’t have the manpower to spare for backup tonight.

And this was important. Palpatine was bringing crime into this town and Rex needed to put an end to it.

As Rex left the shops and houses of Coruscant Cove proper, the roads became quieter as well. He went north on the main highway out of town that wound through the few forested areas left untouched by development on the seaside. The warehouse was a ways outside of town, tucked away on a road mostly used for logging. To get to the turnoff though he had to drive along the coast. This part of the county had been designated a preserve long ago to keep some of the natural beauty and Rex had always loved coming out here. The road twisted and turned, hugging natural cliffs that shielded beaches below.

It was just after dusk. No streetlights out here, just Rex’s headlights and the moon when it peaked through trees.

Until Rex noticed another pair of headlights behind him. The bastard’s high beams were on too, blinding him when he looked in his rearview mirror. City folk most likely, coming out for the weekend to the rougher part of the state for some reckless driving.

Rex’s eyes narrowed as he noted that the lights were growing brighter. Whoever was driving that vehicle was gaining on him, and fast. This was a tricky road in daylight, let alone almost-night. Someone unfamiliar with the area wouldn’t have been able to navigate the curves this well. He shifted in his seat, preparing for the car to try and pass him. He’d flash his police lights then and pull them over for speeding at the very least.

Except they didn’t pass him. For a quarter of a mile once the vehicle had caught up to him, it shadowed his bumper closely. Then Rex followed a slight curve in the road to an even section overlooking the ocean some hundred or so feet below, and the truck—because it was clearly a semi-truck at this point, the lights were too high to be anything else—sped up sharply and rammed his bumper. Rex’s cruiser skidded over the center line as he corrected for the jolt and adrenaline soared through his veins.

The semi backed off for a breath then rammed him again harder. This time he was pushed to the ocean-side of the road, and he barely pulled the steering wheel back from jumping off the shoulder of the road and into the guard rail. But the other driver wasn’t done yet. They backed off a few feet only to come around to the driver’s side of Rex’s cruiser. If they met any car coming from the other direction the semi would slam into them head on.

Rex glanced sideways at the truck as he gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. It didn’t have any cargo attached, meaning the engine could easily go full speed while still holding plenty of force behind it. Bad news for him. He couldn’t see a driver, but he had a good guess who it was. Suddenly his SUV was thrown into the guard rail as the semi veered into him. Rex tried to slow down, extending his leg all the way to the floor of the car as he slammed on the brake pedal, but it didn’t matter. The force of the truck smashing into his car was no match. Sparks flew on the passenger side of his cruiser as his car skidded along the guard rail with a sickening screech. He reached blindly for the radio on his dash and depressed the transmit button.

He thought he yelled something into the receiver, maybe even something helpful like his position, but he could barely hear his own voice over the roar of the semi crashing into him, let alone if anyone answered. The radio slipped out of his hand as his assailant veered away and Rex overcorrected the steering wheel in the sudden absence of an opposing pressure.

Rex saw then why the semi had let off as they neared a bend in the road that skirted around a cliff. The other driver meant to push him towards it, the force propelling his car through the barrier and over the cliff edge.

But Rex knew these roads. As soon as he learned to drive, he’d been testing the curves and downgrades of the empty stretches of highway around Coruscant Cove. So he knew that this particular curve, while dangerous looking from afar, with its promise of a sheer drop to the ocean below, actually hid a much gentler slope down. Well, gentler than it looked from above, but still a higher grade of wild descent through scraggly trees than he’d care to test.

He tried to control the wild steering before he reached the bend, but the semi had also been pushing them both higher and higher on the speedometer as it rammed him. Its headlights blinded Rex in his car’s mirrors as the semi backed fully off, the high beams illuminating the tableau before him like a spotlight.

The horrific wrenching sound of metal breaking through metal dashed his last hope that the guard rail would stop his cruiser’s momentum. Crashing through the barrier was over before he had time to fully process it and then he was flying. He knew the ocean was down there somewhere, but he couldn’t see anything. The black of the starless sky or the black of the sea, what difference did it make.

But when the car finally made contact with something solid—and it was solid, Rex felt the impact in every one of his bones—miraculously it wasn’t the surface tension of water. He saw tree limbs break through the windows of his cruiser as it tumbled downward along the hill in an uncontrolled fall. The car flipped and rolled, pulled down parallel to the road above him. Each roll of the vehicle jolted him, and the seatbelt cut into his chest as his body was dragged in every direction. But then the fall slowed, a large branch eventually stopping the roll as the sloped eased away to something close to flat. 

Rex felt himself slip away into unconsciousness, surprised he lasted longer than the initial impact at all. There was a general sense of _pain_ pinpricking practically every nerve ending in his body. His last coherent thought before slipping into the cloying blackness of oblivion was that Ahsoka was going to be _pissed_.

* * *

“Ani, did you get the check to the caterer?”

“Yes, dear.” 

“And did you pick up the banner from the printer?”

Anakin sighed. “Yes, dear."

Padme walked into the living room where Anakin and Ahsoka were sprawled across the couch. She was in full mayor mode tonight, pantsuit and all. She looked up from her tablet and did a double take when she saw Ahsoka.

“Oh hello, Ahsoka. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Ahsoka shrugged, as much as she could when her shoulders were wedged into the cushions and her legs were suspended over the back of the couch. “I needed a change of scenery.”

Anakin snorted. “She means she was lonely since Rex had to work tonight.”

She lobbed a crumpled piece of paper at his face and he retaliated by grabbing her feet that were dangling above his head and dragging her to his side of the couch.

“Hey!” Ahsoka kicked him. She grinned as she landed a solid heel to his stomach.

Padme sighed and left the room again. Soon they heard her talking on the phone about ballots and important votes and who knows else.

“What’s this?” Anakin uncrumpled the paper she’d thrown at him and attempted to smooth it out.

Ahsoka lifted her head to look. “Oh, just a problem I’m trying to figure out.”

“For a book?”

“No, Jim Quincy.” She dropped her head against the armrest again and waved a hand at the string of numbers and letters on the paper. “There was a flash drive in Gamble’s collar—that’s what we think whoever broke into my house was looking for. But I can’t make heads or tails of that.”

Anakin was quiet for a long moment. “Was your guy a programmer?”

“What?”

“Well I’m no expert, but this looks like code.”

Ahsoka propped herself up on her elbows and stared at her brother.

“You know, like computer code?” At her continued blank look he pointed to the top of the page. “See how it says ‘import’ then a bunch of words and stuff after it?”

“Yeah, we figured that was about the imports at the shipping company.”

Anakin chuckled and turned back to the paper. “I don’t think so. I don’t recognize all these codes and modules, but I bet if we type it into the program it would make more sense.”

“You can do that?”

“Oh sure, it’s not that hard. Especially if someone’s already done the hard part by writing it all out like this. Just a matter of plugging this in and it should give us something at least. I’ve got Python on my computer— What?”

She’d started laughing at him. The mental image of her captain-of-the-football-team, failed-every-math-class-he-took brother having anything to do with programming was just too ridiculous. “Sorry, sorry— It’s just, how do you know about all this stuff?”

“I took a class at the community college,” Anakin huffed.

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh.”

He rolled his eyes, grumbling, “I wanted to program security cameras to spy on Padme’s political enemies, but she said no.”

Once her laughter died down, Anakin retrieved his laptop and opened the program. Ahsoka gave him the flash drive she’d been keeping close ever since the break-in and then watched in amazement as Anakin’s fingers flew over the keyboard. It all looked very technical and hacker-y and Ahsoka decided she was definitely using computer programming in a future book.

“Got it,” he proclaimed with a final keystroke. He turned the screen so she could see. “He used a dictionary to store entries, broken up by letter and number to scramble it, and then the indexes show the—” Anakin glanced from the screen to her face. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Basically, this looks like a log of some sort. See, the first column is a date and timestamp, then two locations—I’m guessing point of origin and destination—and then another column. Not sure what that means.” Anakin pointed to the last column. “Germany, Poland, a few other countries, and more numbers and some random words. He already listed where the shipments—I’m assuming these are your shipments at least— where they came from, so why list another place?”

Ahsoka stared at the information, several words jumping out from the last column. “He was a truck driver, not a sailor,” she said slowly. The locations in the other columns were all on the East Coast, port towns like theirs. But the last column listed places all over the world, some that didn’t even exist on a map anymore. “Most of those places are very far from here and across an ocean or two. Those are points of origin all right, but if I’m right, this is way bigger than just Coruscant Cove.”

“Soka, Soka!” The twins’ voices preceded them as they raced into the room. Leia presented her ringing phone with a grin.

“Your phone is ringing, Soka!” Luke shouted over the phone’s ringtone.

She took the phone absentmindedly, still scrolling through the list of places and times on the computer. “Thanks, guys,” she told them as they ran away just as fast as they’d come, then answered the phone without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Ahsoka! Thank God. I was so worried when you weren’t answering—I’ve called like fifty times… I messed up, Ahsoka. I think—Oh God, this is bad…”

She finally tore her eyes away from the computer screen. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Fives? What’s wrong?”

She heard Fives breathe shakily on the other end of the line. His voice was far away like he was talking through a car’s Bluetooth. “It’s—it’s Rex. I didn’t think they—You gotta believe me, I didn’t know they were gonna do anything to him!”

Cold fear washed over her. “Fives, tell me what happened. Now,” Ahsoka growled. Anakin took the laptop from her clenched hands and watched her with a frown pulling his brows down.

“They ran him off the road, Ahsoka.” Fives sounded like he was crying or close to it. “I got there as soon as I could and pulled him out of the car but he’s in bad shape. Too far… it was too far for an ambulance to get there… He— he’s breathing, but he isn’t conscious. I’m taking him to the hospital.”

“Ahsoka?” Anakin asked quietly.

She took a deep breath. “How far from the hospital are you, Fives?”

Anakin’s eyes widened and then he got up from the couch. He left the room, mouthing _Padme_ at her. Ahsoka nodded and fought to stay calm.

“Uh, I’m on the highway north of town… About five miles, I think.” Good. He should get there soon, especially if he was driving as fast as it sounded like he was. 

“Stay on the line with me while you drive.” She gritted her teeth and headed for the front door. “And tell me everything.”


	8. Chapter 8

_8 hours earlier_

“Yes!”

The sudden exclamation startled Fives. A loud whoop that echoed through the Sheriff’s Department bullpen followed. He’d been doing a lot of that lately, jumping at sudden noises and feeling his heart race when something surprised him.

Rex exited his office and clapped his hands together. “We got ‘em!”

“The warrants for both properties?” Jesse asked excitedly.

“Yup. And good job on finding that other warehouse, Jess. Don’t know how we could’ve missed that.” Rex clapped the other deputy on the back as he made his way over to the coffee pot.

They’d missed it because Fives had wanted them to. He’d purposefully only dug into the last five years’ worth of financial statements on Coruscant Shipping when Rex had asked him to run a background on the company. Just another in a long list of lies that Fives had to live with these days.

“The judge is pulling together the paperwork, but we should have it all signed and ready to go by call of business tonight,” Rex said to the room. “Hopefully we can catch some employees still around, if anyone does actually work out of the second location.”

“You’re gonna go out there today?” Fives asked uneasily.

“Yeah, don’t want to lose our advantage on this one. We’ve been scooped too many times to let it go to waste now. Jesse can handle the station alone. I know you’re off tonight, Fives, but it shouldn’t be any problem on my own.”

“Yeah, no big deal,” he agreed faintly. It’d be fine, he told himself. This was Coruscant Cove. Nothing major ever happened here. A frown still tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Yeah, everything would work itself out.

* * *

“This is the last time, Mal. After this I’m done. I’ve done plenty for you already, more than enough to pay back my debts.”

Instead of the threats and insults he usually received when he tried to push back, Mal only chuckled. “Very well. I suppose after this last piece of information we can call our arrangement finished. As long as it’s worthwhile.”

Fives frowned and rocked back on his heels to lean against the side of the Sheriff’s Department exterior wall. He’d been tensing for a fight and hadn’t expected Mal’s almost bored acceptance. “Good. We’re agreed then.”

Mal sighed on the other end of the phone call. “Yes, yes. Consider yourself free and clear, Deputy. Now tell me what the Sheriff is up to.”

He paused. Fives had done a lot he wasn’t proud of, starting with almost losing the entirety of his mother’s retirement savings in an underground gambling ring owned by Sid Palpatine.

He’d started out with good intentions. His mom had been sick— treatable, the doctors said, but expensive. And they just didn’t have that kind of money for the hospital bills. But he knew where he could get it. The Sheriff’s Department had been sniffing around rumors of a gambling operation for years but couldn’t get a solid lead. So Fives put out a few feelers with some low level bookies and got lucky. Palpatine himself was there to greet him when he arrived at the upscale restaurant his contact had told him to go to. Fives thought he was done for there and then. But Palpatine, with his smug smile, had only waved him inside to a back room with a hand on his shoulder.

“This will be our little secret, won’t it, Deputy?” he’d said.

Fives was doing well at first. He’d almost made enough money to pay off their bills. But that’s what everyone says, isn’t it? _Just once more. I’ll make it up this time, I know it_. Once more came and went and Fives was in trouble. That’s when Palpatine proposed their arrangement.

It started off small. A heads up here and there if anything related to his company came across the Sheriff’s desk. But soon it was obvious that Palpatine was involved in something bigger than a few unpaid parking tickets. Coruscant Shipping popped up more and more often, with bigger and _more confusing_ alleged crimes being committed. But Fives only started getting really uncomfortable with his deal when Mal had him alert them right away after a shipping manifest discrepancy was reported as a possible theft. He never found out and didn’t ask what Mal did to persuade the filers of those reports to drop them.

Then the murder happened.

Fives knew nothing about it, was as surprised as Rex when they got to the scene. And even though they didn’t find any evidence directly linking the murder to Mal or Palpatine, Fives knew. He decided right then and there that he would find a way out of this hole he’d dug himself into. Somehow or another, Fives would end this hell he was living.

Bile rose in his throat, but the words did too. He spoke tonelessly into the phone, “The judge signed the warrant to search your warehouse. The one north of town.”

Mal was silent for so long that Fives thought he’d hung up on him. “And when will Fett conduct this search?” he finally asked lowly.

“Tonight. As soon as the ink dries.”

“Our business is done, Deputy. If you tell anyone what you’ve done, it won’t be just the law after you,” Mal reminded him. It was an oft repeated line in their dealings.

Fives held the phone to his ear with a shaking hand long after the call disconnected.

* * *

He’d tried to delay Rex, he really had. Something bad was going to happen. Fives knew it in his bones.

It was technically a night off for both of them, so Fives invited Rex to grab a beer after work like they used to. But Rex wasn’t to be distracted from his mission.

“Nah, another time, Fives,” Rex said, a cocky smile on his face. “This is a big step, I can feel it. I need to get it done today. It’s worth the overtime paperwork.”

Fives even held up the warrant after it’d come through the department mailbox, hoping to wait long enough to force Rex to do the search tomorrow.

“That judge’s clerk sent the email yet?” Rex called from his open office door at ten minutes to five.

Fives swore under his breath. He couldn’t outright lie to his best friend. “Just came through,” he hedged, hitting the print button on the email he’d been staring at for an hour.

Rex walked out of his office and shrugged on his uniform jacket and hat. “What’re you still doing here, Fives? You’ve been on duty close to sixteen hours at this point. Go home, get some rest. I expect we’ll all need to be on our best game the next few days if this pans out.”

At a loss for anything else to do to stop Rex, Fives nodded and began shutting down his computer. “Yeah, will do.”

But he couldn’t go home. He drove around Coruscant Cove without seeing where he was going. Whatever was coming, he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Maybe he was a coward. Actually, he was definitely a coward. A braver man would’ve come clean to Rex weeks ago and never let it get this far.

The radio on his dash crackled to life and static interspersed with faint words filled the cab of Fives’ cruiser. “Hostile driver attempting to — Highway One, mile marker two-five-oh… Assistance required—"

Fives was jolted out of his daze. Rex was in trouble. All of his worst fears about tonight were coming true sooner than he’d thought possible.

“Sheriff, please repeat!” Jesse’s voice was clear over the radio unlike the choppiness of Rex’s.

Fives yanked the transmitter off its hook and responded, “Jesse, I’m in range to him. He’s on Highway One north of the town line. I’m ten minutes from his position.”

“Copy. Keep your radio on you. It’ll take me at least thirty to get out there.”

Fives punched the flip to turn on his sirens and did a wide, screeching u-turn on the empty road he was on.

_Hold on, Rex. I’m coming._

* * *

The first sign Fives had found him were the tire marks that went for a good half mile off and on. Hard to say without stopping, but it could’ve been Rex’s cruiser. He kept driving, keeping his eyes peeled for Rex or another driver.

The break in the guard rail was massive. Angry shards of metal littered the highway around it. There was no sign of a vehicle.

Fives didn’t bother turning off his engine as he jumped out of his car and raced to the edge. A car had gone down this way, that was for sure. Mowed-over trees and bits of metal lined a hastily cleared path downwards. He couldn’t make out the end of the trail and he didn’t wait around to scout it out.

Fives jumped down the first drop, skidding and sliding on the backs of his thighs. It took a lot of jumping over tree limbs and picking through branches to get to the cruiser, but he eventually made it. The car was still smoking in the cool night air.

“Rex!” Fives shouted desperately. No response.

He sprinted the last dozen or so feet of relatively flat land to the wreck, steeling himself for whatever he might find. The SUV was partially on its side, resting against a large tree trunk that propped the driver’s side a good five feet in the air. Fives shoved open the door and was relieved to see the front and side airbags had deployed. He pushed them out of his way as they deflated.

Rex was unconscious and blood trickled down a wound on his forehead. But the seatbelt held him upright and in place. Fives couldn’t see any other obvious injuries. He climbed up the side of the car and carefully unbuckled him, catching Rex’s dead weight when he slumped forward.

“Easy there, buddy.”

He was breathing. Miraculously, he was alive.

Fives painstakingly levered Rex’s body out of the car and jumped down. He protected Rex’s head as much as he could when they landed and was pleased to hear a grunt forced from Rex’s otherwise inanimate body.

He half dragged, half carried Rex back up the hill. It was a lot steeper going up than it had been going down. When he was about thirty feet from the top, headlights washed over the treetops above them.

Fives stilled. This could be Mal back to finish the job. Fives had his sidearm in his holster, but he couldn’t get to it without dropping Rex. And if it came to a shootout, there was no way he could drag Rex to cover in time.

“Fives, you down there?” A flashlight beam swept over them and Fives exhaled a giant breath as he recognized Jesse’s voice.

“Down here!” he called. “Come help me get Rex up!”

Between the two of them they carried their Sheriff up the last and steepest portion of the slope and quickly placed him in the backseat of Fives’ car since it was closest. The cruiser’s lights were still flashing, giving an eerie glow to the cliff face around them.

“Get him to the county hospital. I’ll call it in with the state police,” Jesse told him, already running back to his own open car door.

Once his door was shut and he put the car into drive, Fives began to panic in earnest. So this was why Mal had been so willing to let him off the hook. There’d be no use for him anymore with Rex out of the way.

Could he be next on their list to get rid of? Fives tried to steer clear of self-centered thoughts like that, when his best friend’s unconscious body was lying across the bench seat behind him. But he wasn’t the only other potential target. Rex had been working with Ahsoka the past few days on this case too. They’d gone to talk to Palpatine just the other day, so Fives knew they were aware of her involvement. And what if they went after Ahsoka’s family, too? His thoughts spiraled into darker and darker territory as he sped along the empty roads.

He called her number, missing the buttons on his phone a few times as he barely looked away from the road to dial. No answer. He jabbed the call button again. And again. He kept calling until finally she picked up.

“Hello?”

For the second time that night, Fives’s whole body deflated with relief. She was okay, they hadn’t gotten to her too. “Ahsoka! Oh, thank God. I was so worried when you weren’t answering!” His voice was shaking as he rambled nonsense. “Ahsoka, I think—Oh God, this is bad…”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” she said too calmly. She didn’t know yet— how could she? This was a terrible way to find out that your—what, ex-boyfriend slash current maybe boyfriend? Fives couldn’t keep up with them—was injured, possibly dying in the back seat of his car at this very moment. “Fives? What’s wrong?”

“It’s— it’s Rex.” He took a breath. This was it. His last chance to hide his part in all this. He could lie by omission to her. Tell her he’d just happened to get to Rex first, and that he didn’t know who was responsible. “I didn’t think they—You gotta believe me, I didn’t know they were gonna do anything to him…”

Ahsoka was quiet for a long moment. The silence seemed to balloon in the cab of his car. “Fives, tell me what happened. Now.”

“They ran him off the road, Ahsoka. I got there as soon as I could and pulled him out of the car but he’s in bad shape. Too far… it was too far for an ambulance to get there… He— he’s breathing, but he isn’t conscious. I’m taking him to the hospital.”

“How far from the hospital are you, Fives?” she asked. Her voice was still deadly calm but held an undercurrent of rage.

“Uh, I’m on the highway north of town…” He glanced at the car’s GPS. “About five miles, I think.”

“Good. Stay on the line with me while you drive. And tell me everything.”

So he did.


	9. Chapter 9

“Ahsoka, I’m okay, really.”

Ahsoka only glared at him in response.

Half of Rex’s forehead was red, slowly mottling into purple and blue and with a gash slicing through the middle. Obi-Wan said it was probably from where his head had hit the steering wheel or airbag. He’d have a black eye by tomorrow.

That left one whole undamaged side of his face that she could slap. And boy did she want to.

“Considering your SUV rolled quite a few times, you actually are in remarkably good condition,” Obi-Wan said with detached interest as he checked over Rex’s chart. “Some cuts and bruises, but no internal bleeding… One nasty bruise on your shoulder from the seatbelt that might inhibit movement for a few days. The only thing I’m mildly concerned about is the concussion, but as long as your symptoms go away in the next day or so it should be fine.”

Ahsoka scoffed and folded her arms across her chest so she wouldn’t reach out to hold Rex’s hand. “Sure, he’s perfectly healthy.”

Obi-Wan either didn’t catch her sarcasm or chose not to acknowledge it. “Fives really shouldn’t have moved you from the crash site without a medical professional checking you over first, but we were lucky in this instance.”

Rex winced as he shifted his bad arm. “So how’s it looking, doc? Can I go home?”

Obi-Wan finally looked up from the clipboard and smiled. “As long as you promise to take it easy for the next few days, I don’t see any harm in it. But I would like someone to stay with you tonight to make sure your concussion isn’t more serious than we thought.” He paused as he seemed to finally notice the tension hanging heavy in the room. He glanced quickly between them, then busied himself with writing a note on the chart.

Rex looked at her for a long moment. “Ahsoka?”

She frowned. “What?”

Obi-Wan coughed discreetly and raised his eyebrows, still pointedly focused on the clipboard in his hands. Ahsoka’s eyes darted between him and the pitifully injured Sheriff on the bed.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Of course I’m taking care of you, you idiot.”

Rex let out a relieved exhale that made her even more mad. One failed car chase and he thinks she’ll run?

“Right then. I’ll just tell the nurses to get your discharge papers together. I’ll be back in a minute.” Obi-Wan closed the door of the hospital room softly behind him in deference to Rex’s head injury.

Ahsoka had no such considerate thoughts. “What the hell were you thinking!” She got up from the chair she’d been sitting in and paced the small room to yell at him. “You didn’t have backup, you ran off to search a warehouse in the middle of nowhere at night, you let yourself get _run_ _off the road_ and almost—!”

She fumed as she stared at the wall above his head, breathing through her nose sharply. Her eyes burned but she refused to let her tears fall.

She barely heard the bedsheets crinkle as he swung his legs over the side. Then his hands were holding hers and drawing her closer to him. She stumbled into the space between his parted knees and let him hold her as she sagged against him. She was leaning too hard into his injured shoulder, but it served him right for scaring her half to death herself.

She didn’t realize she’d started crying until he hummed and tried to soothe her. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, Soka. I’m so sorry.”

Ahsoka buried her face in his chest, probably wiping tears and snot on his shirt but she didn’t care. Rex continued rubbing her back and comforting her until she pulled herself together.

She lifted her head from his shoulder only to rest her forehead against his. “I’m glad you’re still alive,” she whispered, heart firmly on her sleeve in this instance.

“Me too,” he said sweetly.

She pinched the ear on the side of his head that was least bruised.

“Ow—hey!”

“But if you ever do something that stupid again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Then she kissed him.

“Well, I’ve got your paperwork right here, Sheriff. I just need a couple signatures and then— Oh, um,” Obi-Wan stopped talking when he reached the bed, finally seeing that his patient wasn’t listening.

They broke apart and Ahsoka hid her face against Rex’s neck again, this time to hide her laughter. She stepped out of his embrace reluctantly and turned to face her brother. This situation was starting to feel awfully familiar.

“Thanks, Obi-Wan.”

“No problem. Do you need a ride?”

Right, Rex’s cruiser was crashed, probably totaled.

“Nah, I’ve got one arranged for us,” Ahsoka replied.

Rex did a double take. “You do?”

“Oh, yeah. An old friend of mine. We’re gonna go arrest some bad guys. Didn’t I mention that?”

“You most certainly did not.” He stood and Ahsoka automatically put her arm around his waist to help him up. When she was sure he was stable, she stepped back again but Rex caught her hand. In her peripheral vision, she saw the flash of a grin on Obi-Wan’s face before he schooled it into a neutral expression.

“I hope this _friend_ of yours will be doing the actual arresting,” her brother said chidingly. “ _And_ the driving. My earlier advice stands: Rex needs to take it easy.”

Ahsoka was nodding before he’d even finished speaking. “I assumed as much. That’s why I got him some backup.”

“Backup…” Rex said dazedly. Okay, now she saw the concussion shining through. If she hadn’t been before, she was now immensely thankful she’d called in her favor.

Rex had done the leg work on this case. Compiling information on Coruscant Shipping and its proprietor, digging deeper once it became clear something was going on. But now he needed help. Something she was all too happy to provide if it meant he didn’t get run off the road again anytime in the near future. And if it meant she could rub it in his face for a while.

Ahsoka smiled brightly at him before turning back to Obi-Wan. “We good here?

Obi-Wan quickly tore his gaze off their joined hands. “Hmm? Oh yes, don’t mind me. Call me if you need any more medical assistance.” He let out a long-suffering sigh and began filling out the exit paperwork himself.

“Ahsoka?”

A knock on the doorframe had them all turning their heads. Fives quickly glanced at Rex as he stepped inside before addressing Ahsoka.

“We’re all set,” he told her. Something like bleak determination made every line in his body stiff.

She grinned. Where Fives saw an end, Ahsoka saw a new beginning. Hopefully it would be a satisfying one for them both.

“They’re both there?”

“Yup, told me they’d be there for the next hour for sure but after that they’d be gone. Sounds like they’re loading the merchandise and skipping town.”

Things were finally, _finally_ clicking into place in this messed up case. She could feel it. “Excellent. Well, we don’t want to keep them waiting, now do we?”

Rex looked back and forth between them. “Who’s where now?” he asked.

“On the way,” she assured him with a pat on the hand.

“Do try to keep the bodily harm to a minimum, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan said as he produced a signature frighteningly similar to Rex’s on the discharge paperwork.

She kissed him on the cheek briefly before leading Rex out of the room, Fives following dutifully behind them.

“No promises!”

* * *

“You have the flash drive?”

Some nihilistic part of Fives wanted to laugh. Here he was in a darkened corner of a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, about to either get himself killed or arrested and he wasn’t sure which he preferred at this point. He felt like he was going to puke. The bustle of Mal and a few other men loading crates on the other side of the warehouse didn’t make it any better.

“Yeah, I got it.” His voice shook from adrenaline.

The steady _tick_ of Sid Palpatine’s cane hitting the concrete floor as he stepped out from the shadows warred with Fives’ heartbeat to drown out every other sound.

“It really was silly of you to come here, Deputy.”

Yeah, he was aware. He’d told Ahsoka that too, albeit in a smidge more colorful language. But her plan was good. And without it, they’d lose Palpatine, Mal, and any hope of stopping this nightmare. So here he was playing the bait in a fishing expedition. If bait talked back to the fish it was trying to skewer while also trying not to get hooked itself.

Fives clenched the flash drive in his fist. “Why, you gonna kill me just like that truck driver?”

Palpatine chuckled coldly. “I try not to make a habit of that. Messy business, murder.”

Not exactly a confession. Not _not_ a confession either, but Fives knew he could do better. “And smuggling paintings the Nazis stole isn’t?”

Palpatine paused in his slow walk toward Fives. A gleam of something close to respect shone in his beady eyes as he tilted his head.

“ _Ah_ , so our dearly departed associate did have some information squirrelled away. Too smart for his own good, that one,” he said with put-upon chagrin. Well damn, Ahsoka had been right.

Intellectually, Fives had always known Palpatine was behind a lot of the shady business in town. After that first night at the gambling hall when Palpatine had personally invited him in, it was more or less obvious. But once the favors started, it was Mal he dealt with almost exclusively. Palpatine always seemed squeaky clean in a way. As if him being involved with something as ugly as murder was so impossible that they had to be wrong about it. And dealing in art looted by Nazis and who knows how many other scumbags of the world? That'd seemed too outlandish even for an A.B. Tano book.

“Or was it perhaps your oh so brave Sheriff who cracked the mystery? Before you so callously led him to his death, that is.”

Fives ignored the jab about his part in running Rex off the road. Score two for Tano. She’d been right again; they didn’t know Rex was alive. Mal wasn’t known for his follow-through after all, and had probably assumed a not-so-gentle nudge off a cliff was enough to put an end to their law enforcement problems.

“But no,” Palpatine continued without waiting for his response. “ _Smuggling_ , as you so crudely put it, is so much more elegant. I’m providing a service, my boy! Think about it, priceless artwork lost to history— and now it can be enjoyed by individuals with taste. Without me, who knows where that art would end up!”

Fives scoffed. “And the money doesn’t hurt either, does it?”

Palpatine’s broad smile turned into a smirk that showed off his yellowing incisors. “Payment for services rendered.”

 _Keep him talking for as long as possible_ , Ahsoka had said. Not as hard as he thought it was going to be, but Fives still felt like he was slowly being reeled in. He’d learned the hard way before that Palpatine was not a man to be messed with. But it was too late to back out now.

“And the thefts reported in town?”

Palpatine’s smug mask slipped and his lip curled in evident disgust. “Yes, those. Let me give you some free advice, my boy. When you set out to build a criminal empire, always make sure your lieutenants are loyal.”

That, Fives hadn’t been expecting. “Who, Mal?”

“Mal isn’t intelligent enough to go against me,” he tutted. “No, my other apprentice working further down the coast in one of my operation’s transfer points. He got greedy. Convinced himself that this was _his_ campaign and decided to skim from our public-facing shipments. Fool. I’ve got this town under my heel!” Palpatine shouted. The old man radiated a manic energy. “But he has been dealt with,” he said, visibly calming himself down. He abruptly refocused his gaze back to where Fives stood. “Which, unfortunately, will be your fate as well. We can’t have loose ends after all. You understand.”

It was certainly the politest threat against his life that Fives had ever heard. He raised his hands obediently as Palpatine lifted a shiny revolver in his bony, wrinkled hand. If Fives really was going to die today, at least he’d die knowing he was finally doing the right thing in the end.

“Not so fast. Sid Palpatine, you’re under arrest.”

Fives watched in grim curiosity as the color drained from Palpatine’s face. Rex stepped out from behind the crates next to the loading bay, Ahsoka at his shoulder. Palpatine sputtered as he looked between Fives and the growing number of cops rushing into the warehouse to surround his employees.

“You don’t have anything on me!”

“Oh really?” A woman in a dark pantsuit walked in next, holding the receiving end of a listening device. She pressed a button and Palpatine’s voice echoed tinnily through the wide room.

“ _I’ve got this town under my heel!_ ”

“You’ve got nothing!” Palpatine cried as agents handcuffed him and started leading him outside. “My lawyers are the best in the fucking country!”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s let the jury decide that. Kanan, how about reading him some rights?” The woman called to one of the agents escorting him out. She holstered her gun again and ripped the recorder’s earpiece out of her ear. “God, that man’s voice is grating.”

“Just wait until you hear it for a few more years,” Rex deadpanned. “It grows on you.”

She cocked her head and then turned to Ahsoka. “I like him.”

“Me too.”

She extended her hand to Rex. “Hera Syndulla, FBI. Pleasure to meet you.”

Rex whistled as he shook her hand, flinching a bit as she gripped his hand a little harder than his post-car-crash bones would’ve liked. He covered it up with a cough. “FBI? How’d you get here so fast?”

“Hera works out of the Boston office,” Ahsoka answered. “Once I figured out Quincy’s flash drive was a list of famous artwork lost in wartime, I gave her a call.” She paused and glanced at Fives. “Well, after I’d gotten to the hospital and made sure you were still breathing.”

“We’ve been trying to get a lead on the looted art smuggling business in this part of the country for a while now,” Agent Syndulla answered with an air of authority. “A lot of stolen paintings and artifacts were being funneled through various ports on the East Coast, but we could never track how exactly they were getting from point A to point B. Then Yan Dooku’s body was fished out of the Intercoastal Waterway in New Jersey this morning. He’d been making a name for himself in the right circles, so we were already on high alert even before I got Tano’s call. Then it was just a quick jaunt up the interstate to find Tano’d wrapped up my case for me nice and neat, right in time for me to swoop in and tie the bow.” She sighed, a dreamy look on her face. “I’ve missed this.”

Ahsoka snorted. “Yeah well don’t get used to it. This was a one-time deal.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Um, Rex?”

All three of their heads swiveled to look at Fives who was standing just out of arm’s reach. Ahsoka caught Hera’s eye and raised her chin slightly in his direction.

“And our man on the inside!” Hera said enthusiastically. She stepped closer to Fives and shook his hand with both of hers. “We couldn’t have done it without you, Deputy.”

Fives was visibly confused. “That’s not…” He looked to Ahsoka. “What?”

“We’ll have to get your statement, of course,” Hera continued. “Iron out the timeline of how all this went down, that sort of thing.”

Fives still looked like the rug had just been pulled fully out from under him.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s have a chat.” Rex patted Fives on the shoulder and limped further away from the group. Fives followed reluctantly.

Hera watched them go with no small amount of amusement. “He gonna get the idea?”

“Rex’ll spell it out for him,” Ahsoka said distractedly as she watched the two men bend their heads together in a serious-looking conversation.

“You know,” Hera said, studying her flawless fingernails. “Those illegal gambling rings aren’t exactly shining examples of rules and fair play.”

Ahsoka crossed her arms as she turned back to face Hera. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ that your friend there probably didn’t have a chance,” Hera said with a roll of her eyes. “Think about it, they rig the tables so the players who really need it keep coming back and betting more. Then they owe the house big with no way out. And in Fives’ case, they collect in the form of favors. Palpatine had him the second he stepped across the threshold.”

Ahsoka considered that. “That’s… good to know.” She’d already given Fives an earful about his part in all this. And if the look on his face now was any indication, he’d fully realized the harm of his actions. But she’d leave it for Rex to decide how to proceed.

“And how are you handling all this?”

Ahsoka raised her eyebrows. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.” Hera gestured to indicate the warehouse filled with stacked crates of contraband. “This is a big one, even for you. And I know you were trying to get away from all this after New York.”

“Yeah, well. Life finds a way, I guess.”

Understatement of the century.

“And the fella?” She nudged Ahsoka. “I’m assuming he’s got something to do with _life finding a way_.”

They watched as Rex pulled Fives into a hug and thumped his back with his good arm. Fives nodded and held onto him tightly as Rex spoke to him in a voice too low for them to catch.

“Something like that,” she finally answered.

Hera studied her face for a long moment before nodding decisively.

“Good.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Not that I’m not, um— grateful, Ahsoka,” Rex began cautiously as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He kept his arm outstretched for the steering wheel in case she made any sudden movements. “You know, for helping me out while I’m recovering. Letting me stay at your place. But you really don’t have to do this. I could call someone to give us a ride—”

“Nope, I got it,” she said without looking at him. She frowned and patted the dashboard next to the wheel, searching for the turn signal. The car slowly rolled to a stop at a blessedly deserted intersection while she looked. “I can’t believe you still have this pickup anyway.”

“Nothing wrong with it,” he said, trying not to sound defensive.

Ahsoka responded absently, “It was old when you had it in high school. Now it’s a fire hazard.”

Rex scoffed. He hardly ever used his civilian truck, so it still had plenty of miles left in it as far as he was concerned. He fidgeted as she continued to look in the wrong place for the turn signal. This was painful to watch. “It’s—”

“Aha!” Ahsoka flipped a lever and the windshield wipers began swiping furiously across the dry glass with loud _thwacks_.

Rex leaned across her and swatted her hands away from the other switches and dials within her reach. In one smooth motion, he turned off the wipers and flicked the turn signal in the correct direction.

“Oh.”

Thankfully, the drive between Rex’s house and hers was short and all they’d needed to do at his house was get some clothes and his car keys— because Rex was about to pass out from exhaustion.

Hera had dropped them off on her way out of town, promising to call the department with updates in the next day or two. There was a lot of work still to do on the case, compiling evidence and writing up all of their reports for the eventual trial. But there was also an unspoken agreement that, for today at least, they’d earned a rest.

Ahsoka lifted her foot off the brake pedal and slowly, so slowly that Rex could practically feel each turn of the tires on the pavement, turned the corner. She gripped the wheel uncomfortably tight and scanned the road for rogue trucks hellbent on ramming them. One corner of his mouth lifted as he watched her focus so determinedly. They had a lot of work to do themselves, too. But he wasn’t worried anymore. He wasn’t letting go of her this time without a fight.

She eventually parked in front of her stately house with barely another look in his direction. The engine idled for several long seconds before Rex reached across the bench seat again and took the key out of the ignition. Ahsoka didn’t move.

Still staring through the windshield in front of her, she blurted out the last thing Rex expected her to be thinking.

“I’m sorry for taking over your case and calling the FBI in and now you probably won’t even be recognized as the one who caught Palpatine and—”

Rex easily unbuckled his seat belt and then hers. He grabbed her hands and gently pulled her closer to him on the seat. His shoulder couldn’t actually handle dragging any weight, so it was more of a suggestion, but he was pleased to find she didn’t hesitate to slide over to him. Ahsoka hugged him around the middle tightly as she leaned into him.

“I don’t care about any of that,” he told the crown of her head where it was pressed against his jaw.

She leaned back just enough to see his eyes. “You don’t?”

Rex smiled warmly at her. His girl, who was so worried about him and his possible feelings of inadequacy in the face of her brilliance. “I care that the bad guys were caught, that they can’t hurt anyone again. I care that this town and everyone in it is a little safer because of it. I care that you’re safe.”

Ahsoka huffed and her eyes darted out the truck’s window again. “I just— I don’t want you to feel like I swooped in and tried to do your job for you.”

“Soka,” he waited until she made eye contact again. “I couldn’t care less about getting credit for taking down an art smuggling ring— and underground gambling ring apparently. I learned a long time ago that ego is a useless thing to have in law enforcement.”

He could tell she still wasn’t fully convinced, reminding him once again just how much they had to relearn about each other. She must’ve had to deal with some pretty awful cops in the past if she was so worried that he would actually be _upset_ that she solved a case. The case that he was not embarrassed to admit he’d been stumped by and almost got himself killed over. Well maybe he was a little embarrassed about that last part.

“And besides,” he said with a sly grin inching across his face. “It was pretty hot hearing about how you put it all together and planned that takedown.”

A spark of her usual confidence burned in her beautiful eyes and Rex was suddenly aware of her hands resting on his chest as her fingers tightened in his shirt. “Good to know you have a thing for smart, capable women who can one-up you, Sheriff.”

He brushed his thumb along her cheek. “Just this one.”

A sharp knock on the window broke them apart. Rex twisted around, grunting as he pulled his shoulder too fast in the process.

“Hey guys!” Fives said, his voice muffled slightly through the glass. He waved cheerily.

If Rex never saw his deputy’s crooked smile again, it would be too soon. He sighed and dropped his head to Ahsoka’s shoulder.

“What’s he doing here?” Ahsoka asked curiously.

“I forgot to tell you. Part of his probation agreement was community service.”

“What are you talking about? I thought you were handling it internally.”

“We are. But he’s still on probation in my books. And his community service is helping out with odd jobs around town for however long I say so.” He paused. “So he’s fixing your roof.”

“I spent a summer in college working for a roofing company!” Fives assured her, still standing at the passenger window.

She looked between them, Rex looking exasperated but unrepentant and Fives with his overeager grin holding up what she now saw was a hammer and a roll of black roofing material.

“I don’t... What?” she asked.

“It was his idea,” Rex said with a hint of a man trying to distance himself from blame.

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, I told him he was helping out with your house, but he suggested fixing the roof.” Rex rubbed the ball of his shoulder with the opposite hand as he sat up straight again. “I didn’t think he’d come straight here though.”

Ahsoka sighed. “Well, come on then. Can’t keep my new handyman waiting.” She reached across his lap and opened the passenger door.

“I didn’t come straight here from the crime scene,” Fives said when the door was open. Rex swung his legs out of the pickup stiffly. “I stopped by the store for some shingles. Had to guess on the color, but I think I did okay.”

Rex stood on the curb and offered a hand for Ahsoka to climb out of the pickup next. She accepted it with a kiss on his cheek.

“As much as I appreciate you lending a hand,” Ahsoka said diplomatically once she was standing next to Rex. “None of us have slept in at least twenty-four hours. Probably longer.”

Rex rubbed a hand across his chin, feeling the stubble that shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t remember the last time he shaved, let alone slept anywhere but at his desk at the station. And he wasn’t counting blacking out during the crash and coming to in a hospital bed.

“Yeah, I ‘spose you’re right,” Fives allowed, his excitement fading noticeably.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm. But maybe wait to climb ladders until we’ve all had a good night’s sleep?” She squinted in the midday sunlight and shrugged. “Or day’s sleep, whatever.”

“Go home, Fives,” Rex told him gently when his deputy appeared to still be thinking it over. He knew Fives felt like he had to make up for his mistakes, but there was no use running himself ragged over this. Ahsoka’s house had plenty of things Fives could work on to assuage his guilt, and it’d all still be here tomorrow. Besides, they could all use a bit of time to process.

Ahsoka laced her fingers with Rex’s and squeezed. He looked at her, not sure if she meant to get his attention by the action but giving it to her all the same. Like there was anything he wouldn’t gladly hand over to her.

“Yeah, okay,” Fives said with a stubborn grimace. “I _will_ make it up to everyone though.”

Rex snorted, “You better believe it.”

He didn’t feel too bad for making Fives’ punishment indefinite manual labor. For one, he knew Fives actually liked working on roofs because he was a daredevil with no healthy fear of gravity. But he also knew he was genuine in his desire to make amends and turn a corner. Another situation Rex would have to keep an eye on, but he was confident that his friend could come back from this a better man.

Fives set his tools down on the grass and surged forward, engulfing them both in a hug.

“Woah there, okay.” Ahsoka looked at Rex with wide eyes over Fives’ shoulder. Rex just shrugged and patted Fives’ back awkwardly.

Fives stepped back, clearing his throat. “Sorry—just, thank you. Both of you.”

They watched as he got into his Coruscant Cove Sheriff’s Department cruiser and drove away down the quiet street.

“He’ll be okay,” Ahsoka reassured him. She put his good arm around her shoulder and turned them back toward the house.

“Yeah, I know. It’s been rough for him though. And it’ll be a rough road ahead for him, too.”

“We’ll get through it,” she said with a confidence he found himself believing. “Together.”

And Rex said a silent prayer that she wasn’t just talking about his deputy.

* * *

“I should be happy, right?”

They’d showered, ate leftover Chinese food, tended to their wounds. Well, Rex’s wounds. But they were both too wired to sleep yet, despite what she’d told Fives. So they sat outside on the front porch, watching birds fly through the trees and listening to crickets chirp. Ahsoka was surprised to note that the sun was setting now as they sat on her porch swing. The sun’s path through the sky seemed like such a faraway thing after everything they’d been through the last few days.

Rex considered Ahsoka’s words. “Well, yes. But there’s also plenty left to do.” He shrugged. “In the grand scheme of things. So I get it.”

“I just feel like… And it’s always like this, after a case gets wrapped up –yeah, there’s still so much to do! This is just scratching the surface on the smuggling business, and everything else these people were involved with. We’ll never get to a point where everything is neat and tidy and everyone is living in harmony.”

It was human nature to test boundaries. To look out for yourself. And in this world, it was so easy to do that at the expense of someone else. Even if that someone else was your neighbor, your friend. And in the end, yourself.

“All we can do is try,” he said. He took her hand in his and held it tight.

Gamble purred from his place on Ahsoka’s lap. The little fiend hadn’t been too pleased with them when they’d first entered the house after more than a day away, in Ahsoka’s case at least. Separation anxiety, she’d told Rex. He had a pile of food in his bowl, so one of her brothers had been by to feed him while she was away. She’d have to remember to call and thank them. But the cat had yet to allow her to leave his sight again.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Ahsoka answered, twining her fingers with his and petting Gamble with the other hand.

The problems of tomorrow could wait. For a night at least. What mattered was that they were trying. That there was hope in the world. And maybe, that by their actions, they could inspire hope in someone else to continue the fight. That was all she could ask for.

She could tell Rex wanted to comfort her, tell her that everything would be okay. The good guys would win in the end, screen fade to black. But she had a feeling they’d both stopped thinking those thoughts a long time ago.

Sometimes the good guys lost.

Today was a win. But who’s to say tomorrow won’t have some new criminal to take down? A new horror to tackle? They’d come through this one, she had faith they could get through another one. And another one after that. She shouldn’t really need reassurance. It was nice to hear though.

“But you’re here. I’m here. Everyone’s okay.” Rex pulled at the collar of his t-shirt and glanced down at Gamble. “Well, not everyone. But you and Gamble have each other now and he seems to like you.”

The gentleman in question yawned impressively and rested his furry little head on Ahsoka’s arm.

“Never really been a cat person,” she mused with a fond smile. “Never stayed put long enough to feel like I could have a pet.”

“I’m sure if you need to travel again, one of your brothers could look after him. You know for book tours or just— trips, of a sort.” Rex winced and she turned to face him more fully, intrigued by the hesitance in his voice. Through the purple bruises on the side of his face closest to her she could still make out a faint blush creeping across his skin.

“Yes, trips of a sort,” she agreed.

“And I’d be happy to come over and feed him, scoop the litter box, what have you.” His forehead wrinkled adorably as he winced again at what was coming out of his mouth. Fascinating.

Ahsoka shot him a sly grin. “Or you could… come with me?”

Rex blinked, opening and closing his mouth several times. “Um, I don’t want to impose—” He frowned and coughed to clear his throat. “What I mean is, you’re probably used to flying all over the world for things and I don’t want to be in the way. And besides, I’ve still got sheriffing to do here,” he trailed off.

She nodded seriously. “Not every trip of course. Only when you’re not busy... sheriffing. And only if you want to.”

“Ahsoka,” he began with a sober expression, still holding her hand. “I would like nothing more than to be by your side. For whatever comes next. Whether it’s watching you solve all my cases or being your plus one at a book conference in Tulsa.”

“Book conferences don’t usually have plus ones.” She’d call her publisher in the morning to put in a standing request for an extra ticket for all future events.

He exhaled a shaky laugh. “What I mean is, Ahsoka… I know it’s only been a short time, but I never stopped loving you—”

Gamble made a _brrr?_ of affront as Ahsoka quickly leaned across the porch swing bench and kissed Rex. She kissed him with all the slow indulgence that they’d been lacking since she saw him for the first time in twelve years. Hell, even in high school they didn’t properly slow down and just enjoy being together. That, among other things, would change if she had anything to say about it. They stayed locked together for several long moments until she finally broke free. She carded her fingers through his hair and smiled at his look of amazement.

“Good,” she whispered. “Because I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This story did not turn out the least bit like I expected it to, but hey, that's show business. I struggled with the genre and the tone, so I hope there was a satisfying "mystery" and conclusion to it. In the end, I think the plot was a bit more Columbo than Murder She Wrote since everyone knew who the bad guy was from the start, heh.
> 
> Also, one of my greatest character flaws is not responding to comments/messages, but I very much appreciate all of your support/feedback! <3


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